It started raining in San Rafael around 5:30 pm last night, right around rush hour, and the 250 people who'd shown up to talk about marine protected areas were getting antsy. They'd been there since 9 am, wearing shirts and hats and stickers, supporting one proposal or another, waiting for their two minutes to have their say and now there were kids to pick up, dinners to get ready, long drives home on the winding, dark, wet roads of Sonoma and Marin. It's not as amazing to me anymore that two hundred plus people showed up at a public meeting on marine protected areas -- we've had at least that many at the final decision meetings for the Channel Islands and the Central Coast -- no, I was amazed by how many were left when public comment finally opened. At 10 pm.

Fifty people were there to talk about their kayak fishing, their time fishing with kids, the marine mammals they see wounded and sick on the beach, the abalone and kelp they see underwater. For the last year, we've had a group of 45 volunteers from all different background and interests, going over the coast with a magnifying glass, looking at the best habitats, the best fishing holes, the most photogenic dive sites. That group came up with three proposals, placing between 9% and 14% of the 760 square mile region in fully protected marine reserves. Since those proposals were announced letters, emails and petitions have poured in to the state and last night was the chance to have your say in person.

Today, the Governor's Blue Ribbon Task Force looked at the menu before them and faced the very hard job of pulling it all together. They picked ideas from each of the proposals to make their recommendation, including places like the Farallons and Point Reyes, where all three groups had virtually identicial suggestions. It's a real compromise, and I expect that for some once the bleariness of the last two days wears off, they'll wake up wondering what happened to my favorite site? What is going on at Duxbury reef? But from my view, it's a hopeful sign. Maybe we can all get along.

Here's a shot by one of the stalwarts from last night, John Albers-Mead of the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. A Hermissenda nudibranch making slow and steady progress, like the MLPA.