Wednesday, July 22, 2009

grunion greeting, 2009 no go

grunion greeting
new moon cycle (11:05pm-12:35am), overcast skies

We had signed up to watch Del Monte Beach, but Dr. Martin e-mailed us and suggested we not go. Maybe I've been complaining too much about being tired from these late grunion nights, because she thought we shouldn't lose any sleep under the circumstances. A colleague of hers tried to catch grunion Tuesday night by beach seining (have no idea what that looks like) and didn't get any. I have to admit I'm starting to feel slightly discouraged that we haven't witnessed a big grunion run here in Monterey.

We almost went to Carmel Beach instead based on a 2nd-hand report of a big run July 7. I was hoping to see grunion hatching and my husband simply wanted to see grunion spawning. Dr. Martin said the hatching grunion would be too small to see and likely happened a few days ago. Unfortunately, getting back from camping around midnight Monday after 14 hours of driving and Tuesday's late night of grunion watching finally caught up with me and I fell asleep on the couch. My husband wasn't exactly motivated to rouse me from my sleep... (Okay, in full honesty I did say I was too tired to go out right before falling asleep. He's giving me grief right now for stretching the truth a little in an e-mail, but I do think he was relieved to not go, too. Had he really wanted to go, I would have pulled on my boots!)

We're all keeping our fingers (fins?) crossed for a decent grunion run during the full moon in August.

ps 07/25/09 - My hubby joined his regular Saturday morning running group this morning and they were talking about the grunion article in last week's Weekly. Amazingly, they went to Del Monte and Asilomar on Wednesday night and did not see any grunion at all. I am so glad I fell asleep that night. Apparently, these people are hooked and will join us on the full moon in August! LOL!