Here’s an interesting story I came across on Surfline and although it hasn’t happened at any surf spots in this neck of the woods, maybe it’s something that should due to the growing number of people learning to surf. 

Just recently on the East Coast a handful of signs were posted at six of Long Island, New York’s most popular surf spots.

The Surfer’s Code signs have been put up in an effort to address the hundreds of entry level surfers that local surf  schools take out into the local lineups during the crowded summer months. 

The goal of the Surfer’s Code signs is to reduce the amount of avoidable injuries and confrontations due to the ignorance of surfing etiquette and lack of respect in the city’s lineups.

Post from: OC Beach Blog

Here’s what Swegles wrote:

“A second local resident in as many days has come forward saying he saw what appeared to be a big shark in the waters off San Clemente.

Dave Schulte said he was at Riviera Beach at 7 a.m. today when something occurred near Seal Rock, nearly a half-mile offshore. “Something big and gray came out of the water,” he said.

Read more of the story here.

Is all this shark talk freaking you out? I know I’ll probably avoid San Clemente for a bit. Tell me what you think:

Post from: OC Beach Blog

Many of the big airlines began charging much higher fees for surfboards with some as much as $300. Because of this, many surfers who like to jump on a jet to those remote surf spots have been unable to.

A petition was launched recently to fight the outrageous airline costs. Some carriers have banned surfboards altogether, including British Airways and Bahamas Air. Delta has imposed the single largest fee.

Here’s what part of the petition reads:

“Surfers are some of the most travelled people in the world. Pioneering and exploring remote parts of the world to find that beautiful gem of a wave.
Surfers also travel for business, family and a variety of other leisure pursuits where we might also bring a board with us.
What is shameful & discriminatory is that most airlines have imposed fees for the handling of a surfboard. Some airlines have banned surfboards altogether!”

If you’re planning a surf excursion anytime soon and you’re ready to book a flight, check out www.surfers-against-airline-fees.com.

Post from: OC Beach Blog

I surfed in West Newport this morning, and it was like a ghost town – all the summer madness is gone and there was actually parking. Parking!

It was a bit choppy with the wind - and the water is a bit chilly – but still warm enough for it to be pleasant. There were some fun little waves north of the pier - with nobody out.

And no blackball!

After a short time out there, two beautiful dolphins came rolling by just a short distance away. I love it when that happens.
The water was super clear, with specs of gold flakes shining when the sun hit.

Then, a huge, red, Pirates of the Caribbean style Tall Ship cruised by, likely on its way to the Dana Point Tall Ship Festival happening tonight.
What a morning. I love September.

So I gotta ask…

If you have a reason, add it to the comments section below!

 Click here to check out photos from the swell that hit OC this week.

Post from: OC Beach Blog

One of those that makes people cringe at the thought of them is the sting ray, which tend to come close to shore when the water warms (like as of recent). Seal Beach - known casually as “Ray Bay” - is on track to have 700 reports come into the lifeguard station this year. On a heavy day, up to 20 victims can come limping into the lifeguard headquarters for treatment.

O.C. Register business writer Jeff Collins recently was stung by a stingray at Bolsa Chica State Beach. Here’s his account of what happened:

I had just finished riding my first wave early Sunday morning when I put my right foot down and stepped on something hard, round and slippery. “A bottle,” I thought. Suddenly, the “bottle” rolled and I felt a sharp stab on the top of my foot.

“Was that a stingray?” I asked myself. I paddled in, yanked off my rubber bootie and spotted an even, horseshoe-shaped cut on the top of my foot, about 2 millimeters long.

I had to soak my foot in warm water, a female surfer nearby advised. Don’t put anything cold on it.

“Go to the lifeguards,” she said. “To the headquarters building.”

Soaking wet, wearing a wetsuit and burdened with my 9 1/2-foot Bettis board, I hobbled about 200 yards over to the imposing, brick lifeguard HQ, the top of my foot throbbing.

There was nobody around. “Hello!” I called. No answer. I wandered inside and found a first-aid station with four bays. Each had a set of faucets and a long, foot-shaped bucket. Two of the buckets were filled with water. I reached down and touched one. It was warm!

The first-aid station obviously was equipped to treat multiple stings at once, and they’d evidently been waiting for me. I sat down, plunged my foot into the first bucket. By now, the wound had swollen into an inch-high, volcano-shaped lump on the top of my foot. Pain radiated to my ankle and down to my toes.

Bored, in agony and wondering where the lifeguards were, I looked over and saw a rack filled with magazines and plastic-covered printouts on, of all things, stingrays.

I learned first that stingrays are part of the shark family. That figures, I thought. Then I learned that my foot needed to soak for 30 to 90 minutes in water as hot as I could stand it.

I poured out the lukewarm water, turned on the hot tap and refilled my bucket. Gingerly, I lowered my foot into near-boiling water. Miraculously, the pain stopped. The swelling subsided. The hot water, according to the printout, was neutralizing the ray’s venom.

I passed the time reading Surfing magazine, and after a half hour, some lifeguards turned up. They advised me to take my foot out from time to time, let it cool, and when the pain subsides to a 1 or a 2 on a scale of 10, I’ll be done. At that point, I had ZERO pain, so I pulled my foot out of the water and let it cool. Swiftly, the aching returned, and my foot ended up back in the water. On a scale of 10, it was a 12. OK, at least a 7, if not an 8. I had to soak that dog for 30 minutes more before it quit barking. Finally, I got up, grabbed my board and tenderfooted it back to my van.

Along the way, every surfer I encountered told me that they too had been stung before. One claimed that there are more stingrays in Bolsa Chica than Seal Beach, O.C.’s supposed hotbed of ray stings.

“Always shuffle your feet,” he said, demonstrating how to push one foot in front of the other. “Never lift your feet off the ground.”

Another surfer — a marine biologist to boot — explained that a stingray’s stinger is like a knife. Once, a stingray nearly severed his small toe, he said. Another time, it slashed his instep to the bone.

In hindsight, my wound was minor. The ray’s stinger hit my first metatarsal bone and stopped before it got too deep. There was no sign of any barbs embedded in my skin. I never got an infection.

Four days after the attack, the swelling in my foot is nearly gone, although my extremity is tinted with bruises and bronze discoloration. The surfer-marine biologist had told me to come back the next day and try surfing again. I should get “tubed,” he said. “It’s karma.”

By Monday, I did indeed feel well enough to go back out. How was it? Best day of the summer!

Oh, and my feet never touched the bottom of the shore. Not once.

Check out this photo of Collins’ foot, days after the sting:

 

Post from: OC Beach Blog

The bad news is - the found another one. And sunk it.

I went down to the harbor today after getting word from bayfront resident Larry Buckelew that two sea lions had gotten on top of a small boat, and it took in so much water with the weight of the burly beasts that it ended up at the bottom of the harbor.

That sucks. (read the full story here)

There was a ton of debate on whether the sea lions should be left alone, seeing as they were there first. Others agreed with Buckelew and other irked bayfront residents who said the city has to do something better to take control of this issue.

What do you think? Add a comment below or take this poll:

Post from: OC Beach Blog

The city has been grappling with the sea lion issue since 2005, when they sank a 50-foot boat. The sea lions have some how learned how to jump onto boats. Read more of the story here.

The recent case has kept residents up throughout the night, with little they can do about the constant noise issue.

Post from: OC Beach Blog

The story says that claims by environmental activists were wrong, according to Richard Seymour, a research engineer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and an oceanographic consultant, who was paid $6,000 for the report.

“The reports commissioned by the Surfrider Foundation just contained a number of very, very serious erroneous assumptions – and incorrect theories, and incorrect interpretations of other documents,” Seymour said.

Much of the support for the Save Trestles campain came from surfers looking to protect the loved surf break.

What do you think?

Read more of the story here.

More stories from the Beach Blog:

Trestles saved - for now.

NSSA signs cable deal with Fox Sports

Fishermen catch 10-foot Mako shark, feed 500 people

Top Pro Surfers give back to the Groms

Miss that hurricane swell last week? Check out these photos (includes rare break “the Point”)

Body art at the U.S. Open of Surfing: Can you tell what is real?

U.S. Open of Surfing coverage

Map of OC shark sightings

Post from: OC Beach Blog

The yellow flags with a black dot in the middle are being posted on many lifeguard towers along Orange County beaches starting now!  Some of the beaches guaranteed to blackball are Huntington Beach from the southside of the pier all the way to the river mouth at Brookhurst street.  Also, just about every spot in Newport will be closed to surfing once the flag is up, except the River Jetties which is open to surfing all day long. 

Some of the breaks where you can paddle throughout the day in HB start from the northside of the pier all the way up to at least Golden West street, possibly even a little farther north.   Seal Beach’s river mouth is another spot where you can break out the boards all day.   Meanwhile down south in Laguna some stretches of coast there have designated areas.  Salt Creek and Doheny in Dana Point also have posted areas for surfers. 

 is open for surfing all day on the northside of the pier, while on the southside down to T-Street it blackballs.  And lastly all of Trestles is open for surfing year round.  Beaches that throw up the blackball flag will do so from now until at least Labor Day weekend in September.

Check out the image below for exact spots where you can and can’t surf:

Post from: OC Beach Blog

Shark expert Ralph Collier this morning weighed in on what he thinks happened on the backside of Catalina this weekend, when a woman was knocked off her kayak by a great white shark, a bump that sent her flying into the water screaming while her family and other anglers watched helplessly from a boat.
Bettina Pereira survived the encounter with out a bite, and just sore muscles. When she flew into the air, Pereira actually stepped on the shark at one point, then pushed off in the opposite direction, her husband Andrew said in an interview Monday. 
Collier, who runs the Shark Research Committee, contacted Andrew and confirmed it was a great white they encountered, based on the description and behavior of the shark.
“They’ve been at the island for millions of years,” Collier said. “So the fact that something has finally happened over there does not surprise me. I’m surprised it’s taken this long. ”
Collier said that it was an “investigation attack.” 
“The shark was not interested at all in eating her, otherwise it would have stayed in the area and eaten her,” he said.
It was unusual behavior, however, for the shark to come back and ram the kayak, which knocked her into the air and flipped the kayak over.

Read more from an interview with Collier, where he tells us why we are seeing more sharks lately, and recalls similar kayaker encounters (where another person landed on the shark), and one attack in Malibu that ended in death.

Here’s the original story:

Andrew Pereira Monday recounted his wife Bettina’s unbelievable great white shark encounter Saturday morning off Catalina.

The Huntington Beach couple – along with their three kids – had taken their 50-foot boat to the island for an annual fishing tournament, and as always, Bettina dropped her kayak into the water to paddle around a bit.
They were on the backside of the island at Eagle Rock, and Bettina was about 500 feet from the shore in 200-foot deep waters when she felt a knock on her kayak.
At first she thought it was another boat or a whale - but then she looked in the water and saw the dorsal fin come out.
“It comes right under the kayak, threw her in the air, threw the kayak in the air,” Andrew said. “When she landed, she landed on the back of the shark, on her two feet. It was incredible.
Bettina screamed for help. The shark heads in one direction, and she jumps off in the other direction.
Andrew didn’t see the initial bump, but looked over when their 14-year-old son Andrew said “mom fell off the kayak.”
That’s strange, Andrew thought. In the 12 years she’s been out in the waters kayaking, she’s never fallen off. Then, in a split second, young Andrew yells: Oh my God, there’s a shark after her!
“It seemed like a long time, but it all happened so quick,” he said.
Bettina is currently on the boat resting, her body sore from the attack. Andrew is handling media calls so she can rest.
“I’ve never had any fear of having her in a kayak. There was nothing I could do,” he said. Their boat, Bettina Lee, was anchored and they couldn’t get to her.
Fortunately, there were two small boats nearby that rushed over to her within 20 seconds. The boat “Topless” picked her up out of the water.
Andrew thinks the shark took a bite out of the kayak during the scuffle, and didn’t like what he bit into.
When asked if this will keep him and his family out of the water, Andrew said they love the water and changing their lifestyle wouldn’t be easy.
“You can’t live your life being fearful of something like that happening,” he said. “My wife, I’m sure it will be a long time before she gets on the kayak.” 

I just wrote a blog a few hours ago about a possible great shark following an outrigger here in Laguna Beach this weekend. Read that story here.

There is a video on CBS2.com about the great white incident at Catalina interviewing Pereira via phone, where she said her first thoughts was that a whale had knocked her off. “I landed right on the shark’s body,” she said.

Here’s part of a witness account about the Catalina attack by Bill Weilbacher, who was on a nearby boat and saw the entire attack. The entire post is here at allcoast.com:

“The woman is fine physically and was not actually bitten, but I’m sure she’s going to have her share of nightmares for some time to come.

… I was in the process of pinning my first squid on the hook when I heard a scream from the direction of the kayak. I looked over and saw the kayak flipping over and the woman going in the water. She was about a hundred yards away.

I saw a big splash next to the boat and then saw what I initially thought was an arm waving back and forth and splashing. The “arm” was dark so I thought I was looking at a person in a wetsuit waving his arm back and forth… After about two seconds I realized the “arm” was actually part of a huge shark tail oriented vertically in the water and it was thrashing back and forth right at the surface. The large dark shape was actually part of the shark sticking out of the water. The portion of the tail I could see looked like it was three feet long. The shark was pushing on the kayak and the woman was on the far side of the kayak holding on and screaming. Apparently, when she was knocked out of the kayak at some point she ended up with the kayak between her and the shark. I’m sure that’s what saved her life. Anyway, the shark was pushing on the up-side down kayak to get at her and the whole while she is shrieking like nothing I’ve ever heard…

By this time the shark had sunk out and the woman had begun swimming away from the kayak toward the big Mikelson. Watching her swimming was about the sickest thing I have ever seen. It was a feeling of complete helplessness. I was positive that big shark was going to come up and hit her at any second. The vessel “Topless” (looked sort of like an open 20 foot Skipjack, but I don’t think that’s what it was), got to her first and pulled her out of the water. Amazingly, she was unscratched. The Topless took her back to her boat and the other small boat (a blue center console) towed her kayak back for her.
The woman’s family (including her grade-school aged kids) were all on the Mikelson watching helplessly as this whole thing went down. (They were anchored as well.)

… We motored over and talked to them after a little while to make sure that she was OK. She was in kind of a giddy, euphoric “I can’t believe I’m alive.” frame of mind. She said that she felt the bump from underneath and that it rolled her into the water. She said at one point (I guess toward the end of the attack) the shark went under the kayak and she pulled her feet up and then was kicking at it… She said as she was swimming for the boat all she could think about was the fact that her family was going to watch her get killed by a shark.

Read here for more shark stories:

Great white shark spotted by charter boat 2 miles off Doheny State Beach

Great white sharks: Have you seen any? Check out our map of sightings

Another fatal shark attack

Shark kills swimmer in Solana Beach just south of OC - local beaches stay open

A shark’s tale… or not? Huntington surfer says board was bit by great white 

Post from: OC Beach Blog