SAN PEDRO, Calif. If the tide is high, the weather is warm, the
clock is approaching midnight and the beach you're standing on
is in Southern California, it's a given that romance is in the
air – or the water. In these parts, it's a time for grunion
love. The California grunion does something no other fish on the
planet is known to do. It surfs a wave right out of its world
and into ours. Then it plops itself down on the sand to lay and
fertilize its eggs before waiting patiently for another big wave
to carry it home. Sometimes, before it hitches a ride back to
the ocean, someone like 13-year-old Judy Feng will catch it – or
at least try to (they're slippery). "At first I was trying to
get it, but it was all slippery and I dropped it," a delighted
Feng said during a recent midnight run at Cabrillo Beach in San
Pedro, where more than 2,000 people lined the shore for a good
half-mile in search of the legendary but elusive aquatic wonder,
known scientifically as leuresthes tenuis. "I was going to let
it go, but