Day 352, Year 10: Of Fish and the Moon
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2015
Weather: Gorgeous Day Ending with a Lunar Eclipse
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
This was a day of fish and the moon, and what a gorgeous day it was. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue with not a cloud all day and has been mostly clear tonight with only a few scattered clouds. Mark and I made a decision to just hang out on the boat and relax all day, an almost unheard of experience around here. In the morning we did go to shore to drive into Woods Hole to buy eggs and milk and on the way back to the boat in the dinghy we found ourselves in the middle of huge schools of small fish–peanut bunkers, AKA pogies or menhaden. They were so thick that Mark felt like it was momentarily difficult for the motor to move us forward. We’ve never experienced anything like this before. And it got even better as the day progressed. When we came out into the cockpit to eat lunch we looked into the water to see huge schools of 5-8 inch long fish. These were definitely not peanut-sized and I’m not totally sure what I was seeing. I assumed they were bunkers or menhaden, but Atlantic Menhaden are supposed to have gray tails. These fish definitely had yellow tails. Gulf (of Florida) Menhaden have yellow tails, but they should not be here. So hopefully someone with some local knowledge can help me out here. What I do know is that they were everywhere around the boat, all swimming in the same direction as if leaving the harbor. I watched until my vision got blurry as they swam just barely under the water. By the time I had finished my lunch, they were gone, at least gone from our location in the inner harbor.
Mid-afternoon we drove down to the beach and took a 2-mile hike on the bike path. The bike path is called the Shining Sea Bikeway and today there was certainly a shiny, sparkly sea beside us as we walked. It was after 4 pm when we got back to the car, so we headed to Heather and Jed’s for dinner. We thought we were having left-overs, but Jed’s mom, Marti, decided that she would treat us all to the take-out of choice. That choice ended up to be sushi which we all enjoyed immensely. Thank you, Marti! Jed will head to Washington, DC, with Marti in the morning. She will be returning home after being away for the summer and Jed will help get all systems up and running before flying home on Tuesday. Unfortunately the weekend was not good for Ollie’s cold and he will be staying at home tomorrow with momma. I will drive Mark back to Boston and then come home to get ready for what looks like a week of rain and strong winds from the northeast. If the weather forecast is correct, tomorrow will be the last day without rain for the next seven.
Tonight the total focus has been on the total eclipse of that beautiful supermoon. Right on cue, just after 9 pm the eclipse began. The lower left portion of the moon began darkening and an hour later you could only see a shadow of the moon with just a tad of highlighting on the bottom right side. It is now after mid-night and the light is returning to the lower left side of the moon. We are so lucky to have had such a clear sky so we could watch this incredible show. Today was a triple feature with the schools of very small fish, the schools of much larger fish, and then the total eclipse.
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| 150927 Day 352 Cape Cod, USA–Schools of Fish & Supermoon Total Eclipse |
