What to Know
- Grunion Fishtival and Member Appreciation Night at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro
- Saturday, June 8 from 6:30 p.m. to near midnight
- The KCRW Summer Nights event is free; be sure to RSVP at the KCRW site
The grunion, a small silversides fish that famously wriggles onto the sand, always kind of looks like it is ready for a party.
Maybe it is because the scales of this ocean inhabitant have such a fetching iridescent quality — just the sort of look you might see at a discotheque — or perhaps it is because the grunion displays such fluid moves when it shimmies onto land to make more grunion.
Either way, staging a celebration near the stunning scene of grunion spawning feels just about right. And that's just what will shimmy at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium on June 8. It's time for a Grunion Fishtival, and for the San Pedro institution to show its members some grunion-themed gratitude.
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Admission is free, but you'll need to RSVP at the KCRW site.
Everything begins at the aquarium, where KCRW DJs Anne Litt and Jason Kramer will be at the turntables. Dance your grunion-loving cares away, but before then, make time to attend an intriguingly titled talk.
"How's Your Sex Life (on the Beach)" begins at 6:30 p.m., which will take the provocative plunge into modern dating.
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Artist John Van Hamersveld — if you love the "Endless Summer" movie poster, you're a fan — will be there celebrating a new mural; the artist will take time to sign some prints, too.
And around 10:30 p.m., which you might dub the magical hour for grunion-centered spectacle? Guests can head down to the nearby beach, where the party's guests-of-honor may be viewed, from a respectful distance, performing their age-old ritual.
Of course, grunion are on their own schedules, so we'll have to cross both fingers and fins that they'll show. And, of course, yet again, 10:30 p.m. isn't a hard nor fast time for the fish to show up during a designated grunion run; the famous fishies do tend to favor the later hours, though, on the select nights they are expected to spawn.
June 8 is World Ocean Day, when we pause to love upon the Big Blue.
This frolicsome Fishtival is an ideal place to embrace our connection to the waves and the wondrous life found beneath them and, yes, sometimes, in the case of the grunion, just beyond the edge of the ocean.
