Sunny Skies Lure Beachgoers; Cool Days Ahead

Breezy sunshine drew about a thousand visitors to the beach at Bolsa Chica State Park on Saturday, park officials said, some for the first excursion of the year and others showing off the coastline to visitors from out of state.

The brisk wind off the ocean lowered the temperature along the water while creating dusty haze inland. The National Weather Service reported a high Saturday of 71 at Newport Beach and 80 at Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano. Sunday’s forecast calls for cooler temperatures, with highs in the 60s, and increasing cloudiness through Monday.

At Bolsa Chica, Martin and Jeanie Hardlund of Long Beach were in bathing suits for the first time this spring, stretched out on the sand, reading.

Cooler Than Expected

“We’ve been thinking about it all week,” Martin said, although he added that the weather was “a little cooler than I thought it would be.”

Curt and Lori Schneider of Glendale were spending their first afternoon at the beach playing paddle ball by the water’s edge. Curt Schneider said the couple come to the beach “maybe half a dozen times over the year” and that they “just decided to come last night.” They would head back inland, Lori Schneider said, “when we start to turn red.”

“Usually we start to enjoy the beach in the middle of April,” said Bob Iwata of Downey. But after lunch he decided to take his sister, who is visiting from Japan, his wife and two children to Bolsa Chica. “The weather is warm--good for the beach,” he said.

Dennis Johnson of Lakewood found it warm enough to swim, as did two of his three buddies who were visiting from Seattle. One of the three, Darin Derrick, said he had spent the previous week in Seattle in a basement tanning booth, preparing for his beach debut.

“It’s perfect,” Derrick said, after retrieving his sunglasses, which had washed up in the surf.

‘Too Crowded’

“I would live here,” said Steven Cordell, “but it’s too crowded.”

Jo Carmack and her 16-month-old daughter, Lindsay, came to California in January from Iowa, where Carmack said “it was 50 below when I left.” The beach trip was the idea of her hosts, Ray and Vickie LeBlanc, who described themselves as “old-time Southern California bikers” from Wilmington. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a beach this nice,” Ray LeBlanc said of the clean, wide, sparsely populated strand.

Jeff Pauly, a gardener from Lakewood, was on a modified busman’s holiday, digging in the sand with his two young sons, Joshua and Eric, as his wife, Sharon, and baby daughter, Amanda, looked on. The family trip, he said, was “more or less on the spur of the moment.” When not digging, Pauly and Joshua went swimming. “The water’s nice,” Pauly said, “once you get used to it.”