Tom McClain was sitting on his surfboard on the north side of the Seal Beach Pier when the orange helicopter started to hover over the water.
Water sprayed him, pushed by the force of the propellers.
McClain wasn’t complaining.
“I thought it was kicking up the swell,” he said, laughing.
Beachgoers lined the sand Sunday afternoon to watch the Coast Guard do a mock rescue demonstration by lowering one of their crew near the water and lifting him up as he waved to the spectators.
“I thought he was going to jump,” said a disappointed Ian Tran, 15, who recorded the event with his cell phone. “But it was pretty cool.”
The demonstration was just part of Surfrider’s Ohana Day (Ohana is Hawaiian for family), a beach party for Earth Day with about a dozen booths, free surf and bodyboarding lessons - and of course, information on how to keep the coast clean.
Coast Guard Lt. Dominic Moreno, who specializes in search and rescue and also sits on the Surfrider board, said that the demonstration helps to remind people about water safety. The helicopter came down from LAX, about a 10-minute flight down coast. 

“Being out here and showing off the helicopter, it’s all part of the job and we’re happy to do it,” he said.
  Ohana Day was the brainchild of Cindy Duncan, committee member of the Seal Beach/Huntington Beach chapter, as a way to raise awareness of Surfrider’s programs.
“We wanted to show the community we exist,” she said. “We care about protecting the coastline and the ocean.”
They enlisted the help of local shops, many of which handed over goodies like surfboards and gift certificates to be raffled off.
Tom and Susan Sugihara brought their two kids, Kaitlyn, 9, and Dylan, 6, to get free lessons from M & M surf school.
“He surfs and he really wants to get them involved with his hobby,” Susan said of Tom.
Further north of the pier, a group of students from Pacifica High School in Garden Grove clutched blue bags as they scoured the sand for trash.
Student Drew Strieter, 14, talked about eight of her friends into getting up early to do their part.
“I go to the beach a lot, it’s really dirty,” she said. “I think it’s really gross when you walk down the beach and there’s trash everywhere.”
Her teacher Karl Bertaim said he was proud of his student, and said she pulled it all together herself.
“It’s amazing. So many of these kids get a bad rap for what they don’t do,” he said.
Student Billy Swanson, 14, picked up a Budweiser can and shook the sand out of it.
“How can people be so careless and leave their trash around?” he said.

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