unofficial grunion greetingfull moon cycle, 10:30-11:05pm, partly cloudy skies
I am out of my mind! After 8 hours of driving back home, through rain, snow, and hail, I barely finished unpacking when I asked my sniffly hubby (he has a cold in a major way and I haven't seen him in 12 days) if he was up for going grunion greeting. It's not even a Doc Martin-approved outing; she thinks it's too early and too cold for our area this far north. I think she's given up on the Monterey area, but I haven't. I'm determined to report a W-3!!! (I'm thinking my hubby is extremely accommodating to my enthusiasm or is possibly, a teeny bit, interested in nature, too. Haha!)
Sure enough the lighted, squid boats were out in full force. I'm starting to figure their timing has much to do with the tide cycles, but I can't seem to find any confirmation of this online. We hoped to at least see Charlie, our night heron "friend" from last year. No such luck. And, no grunion. Phooey!
The tide was very high compared to any outings last year. It went up to the 2nd parking meter and in some areas right up to the beach house shown above. Despite all the cars on the commercial wharf, we only saw 2 people fishing. One had a huge flood light, powered by his truck, and was looking for striper. He was extremely grumpy, as I've now found most fishermen are.
Since it was windy and starting to rain, we headed home to a warm bed after only a little over half an hour.
ps - As usual, I'll probably edit this post once I look up an e-mail from Dr. Martin a couple months back, asking if anyone here felt a training workshop would be beneficial. Plus, I know y'all have missed my mysterious, fuzzy, nighttime lights pics!
pss 04/29/10 - I heard back from Dr. Martin after I made the first comment below. Here's what she said, "A minor correction, we did have a report even farther north than San Francisco last year, in Tomales Bay. Small, but present. As far as we know they are gone from San Francisco Bay but I'll keep checking from time to time."
And, yes, I officially reported our non-finding to grunion.org. Apparently, not seeing any grunion is acceptable research data. Can you believe they have 560 volunteers this year?!?
For quick links to active grunion nights, versus numerous verbose posts of my fuzzy nighttime pics of lights, click May 24, 2009 and June 7, 2009. You'll notice in my pics that most people have nappy-noggin' warmers and heavy coats in June! Our experience last year was NOT like what they show on t.v. from SoCal, but I'll take it just the same and still hold out hope we'll witness something spectacular. For a great horror B-flick of grunion, check out James Cameron's Piranha II: The Spawning.
The tide was very high compared to any outings last year. It went up to the 2nd parking meter and in some areas right up to the beach house shown above. Despite all the cars on the commercial wharf, we only saw 2 people fishing. One had a huge flood light, powered by his truck, and was looking for striper. He was extremely grumpy, as I've now found most fishermen are.
Since it was windy and starting to rain, we headed home to a warm bed after only a little over half an hour.
ps - As usual, I'll probably edit this post once I look up an e-mail from Dr. Martin a couple months back, asking if anyone here felt a training workshop would be beneficial. Plus, I know y'all have missed my mysterious, fuzzy, nighttime lights pics!
pss 04/29/10 - I heard back from Dr. Martin after I made the first comment below. Here's what she said, "A minor correction, we did have a report even farther north than San Francisco last year, in Tomales Bay. Small, but present. As far as we know they are gone from San Francisco Bay but I'll keep checking from time to time."
And, yes, I officially reported our non-finding to grunion.org. Apparently, not seeing any grunion is acceptable research data. Can you believe they have 560 volunteers this year?!?
For quick links to active grunion nights, versus numerous verbose posts of my fuzzy nighttime pics of lights, click May 24, 2009 and June 7, 2009. You'll notice in my pics that most people have nappy-noggin' warmers and heavy coats in June! Our experience last year was NOT like what they show on t.v. from SoCal, but I'll take it just the same and still hold out hope we'll witness something spectacular. For a great horror B-flick of grunion, check out James Cameron's Piranha II: The Spawning.
