Lunacy
Mail Bag Blog: Grinning and Howling
Mail Bag Blog: Your answers - here!
Jamie from North Bay, Ontario writes…
"Oh great Guru, mystic floater, artful adventurer and astute ass-planter, clever craft user yet crafty consumer, wily wet world goer & judicious jauntifier, sage smiley symbol of our blue earth, wise ass, Sir,
I was slipping and sliding back from a roaring Friday night get together very recently and noticed my shadow on the snow where there are no street lights. Looking up I saw a very bright full moon with the tip of a little leafless branch across it in silhouette, so it looked like a smile.
I wish I had taken a picture of it because yesterday a friend sent me a link to beerfloat and I see you use the smiley image all the time.
I haven’t had a chance to read all your blogs yet so my question is have you written about floating under a full moon?
Jamie”
Answer by Corliss Buenavida - December 07, 2025
First of all, Jamie, flattery will get you nowhere, but the honesty of your true statements forced me to select your email over all the others (had there been any). I also wanted to respond immediately because I found an error in your comments which I wanted to rectify before you go on believing it to be a truth for the remainder of your existence.
As I know North Bay sits at the north-east corner of Lake Nipissing, and you mentioned a slippery walk with no streetlights, I am guessing you were stumbling back from ice fishing this past Friday night? You did not see a full moon.
The full moon was actually on Thursday, December 4th, at 6:14PM in your Eastern Time Zone and it was also a Supermoon which accounts for how large and bright it appeared to you the following night. This particular full moon was labeled the ‘Cold Moon’ and was the third consecutive Supermoon due to its current close orbit to Earth.
In regard to your question, sorry to disappoint, ‘No, at the time of your writing, I have not blogged about a Full Moon Float’. However, happy to appease, I am doing so now!
As co-incidental as it may appear, I also noticed this full moon and yes, I saw it from a float with bevy in hand in the big swimming pool at The Villa, here in San Juan Del Sur.
A friend and I had returned from a nice dinner at the best place in town to get a good steak, ‘Sabores de mi Patio’ which translates loosely to ‘flavours of my backyard’ (although geographically I would refer to it as their front yard), and I suggested a night cap float with a couple of insulated tumblers with a cube of ice and bountiful portion of 12-year-old Flor De Caña rum.
What better place to enjoy such a treat than in vinyl floating loungers?
This was by no means my first Full Moon Float. When I mentioned one to my daughter in the past, she responded with, ‘So, you were you skinny dipping again. Nobody wants to see that!’’
Although I have done that type of full moon float this was not one of those.
What made this full moon stand out for us was the rainbow-like ring around the bright white orb. At the time we were calling it a ‘Lunora’ much like people say, ‘Corona’ when speaking of a ring around the sun.
However, while doing my research for this Mail Bag response, I found out that I have been miss-describing a corona all along. The corona is the outermost layer of a star’s atmosphere and that coronal light is only visible to the naked eye during an eclipse.
What we typically see as a ring around the sun, and in our case during the recent full moon, is a ‘22° halo’. For the sun it is a Solar Halo and with the moon a Lunar Halo, also known as a Moon Ring or Winter Halo.
I won’t delve deeply into the science but as the light from these heavenly bodies passes through a sky featuring a thin cloud layer (typically cirrus) the hexagonal ice crystals in those clouds refract the light at a 22° angle out from straight which produces the ring around the orb.
Various cultures over time have interpreted a lunar halo with different meanings. Sailors would see it as a sign of worsening weather, which can be the case but not necessarily always, as high atmosphere cirrus clouds often precede low-pressure systems that bring precipitation. Early Egyptians saw it as Ra’s protective gaze. A Chinese interpretation sees a celestial dragon swallowing the moon, symbolizing chaos and upheaval while Native Americans had an opposite view, one of unity and harmony among people.
One thing about a Full Moon Float (and a Supermoon to boot), if star gazing is your thing, then you are out of luck!
It was so bright I was able to turn off all my normal ambient ‘mood lighting’ in and around the pool and still see very easily. We also saw a night version of what I call the ‘Southern Lights’ which is a reflection off the pool which casts illumination on the underside of the roof over the poolside terrace. You can read about my Southern Lights here.
Another subject I believe I have mentioned in passing is ‘cloud gazing’. This is where you are looking straight up at the clouds from your float watching them morph from one image into another. This was not happening during this recent full moon, as we had a misty sky producing the ring, but I have often viewed fluffy white delights under a bright moon.
What can you see?
Astronomers will tell you; actual viewing of the full moon is not very good due to the perpendicular angle of the sun’s reflection eliminating detail. About a week after full moon offers the best images, especially along the ‘terminator’ line where lunar day and night meet in an arc.
Any night float which allows viewing of the moon is a good opportunity for a lunar related playlist. There are so many songs written about the moon that you won’t be able to listen to them all before it has passed from view each night. Some are standards which have been recorded by many artists, such as Blue Moon, It’s Only A Paper Moon and Fly Me To The Moon. Then there are the golden oldie classics from the rock and pop world such as Bad Moon Rising, Harvest Moon and Moon Dance. Every balladeer and singer/songwriter seems to have had a thought or feeling they needed to exude in a song about old Luna but the one which seems to show up more often than any other is, Moon River.
Composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer it was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song and a year later Grammys for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
As Ronny Bennett writes for ‘Song Meanings’, “The ‘Moon River’ is a metaphor for a path illuminated by the moon’s light on the water. In the film, it represents Holly’s (Hepburn’s role) journey to find herself and the life she wants.”
If you haven’t heard the song, where have you been hiding? If you haven’t seen the movie, see it!
No full moon blog would be complete without mentioning a howling wolf or in the case of Nicaragua multiple howling dogs, but that is every night.
I hope I have answered your enquiry, Jamie.
Finding my path under reflected light, with a bathing suit on,
Corliss (He/Him/She/They/It/Thing)
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