Joe Griskonis looked out toward the wild ocean at 20th street in Newport, the wind-whipped waves crashing onto the shore at a steep angle.
Griskonis made a last-minute decision before sunrise this morning to postpone a round-trip mission to Catalina on his paddleboard, a goal he had set to raise money for Matt Oka, who became paralyzed after a bodysurfing accident earlier this year near the Balboa Pier.
“I’m so bummed,” he said, sitting in his Jeep with a 14-foot paddleboard on the roof. “But there’s just no way. I don’t have a suicide wish.”
Griskonis may jump on a boat to Catalina later today in order to paddle to Newport tomorrow, then paddle back to Catalina on Monday, he said. But he’ll have to watch the conditions closely through the day.
Surfline.com forecasters pulled together a custom report for Griskonis, and highly recommended he not do the paddle because of the strong, northwest winds that were expected to blow up to 25 knots.
Tom Cozad, a Newport photographer, was going to go up in a helicopter to shoot Griskonis while on his mission. He said there was no way he was going to go out in those winds.
“I’ve been surfing my whole life, there’s no way I’d even surf in this,” Cozad said. “He’d die out there.
Griskonis called a contact at the U.S. Coast Guard - who he had coordinated with to tell about his plan in case there was any incident - to let them know he wasn’t heading out.
“We’ve talked a lot in the past couple days,” said incident manager U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Mick Scott. “He absolutely made the right decision and I’m extremely proud of him. He was an ace about this whole thing.”

Check back at ocregister.com/beaches to see if Joe will paddle from Catalina to Newport tomorrow.

- Laylan Connelly

Posted in: Beach culture |

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