Allure of Shore as Infinite as Towels Dotting the Beach

Erika Bertotti was sitting on a pipe, staring out to sea. She fiddled aimlessly with the ends of her curls. Her hair fell like rain, and the words came out almost melodiously.

“I think it’s beautiful,” she said. “I grew up here. I never want to leave. I’m drawn to it. I can’t pull away.”

Bertotti has come to the waters of Oceanside every morning for five years. As a 19-year-old graduate of Carlsbad High School, she has no plans to work or to attend college. She simply goes to the beach.

“It’s so peaceful,” she said beatifically. “It goes on forever. It’s so powerful. For me, it’s the best place to think--to be alone. And yet, somehow, it’s never lonely.”

The ocean is many things to many people, or perhaps all things to all people. For Bertotti it’s a ritual, a compulsion to meditate and contemplate. For others, it’s life. For still others, it is romance, intrigue, escape--the feeling that life goes on forever, that the world offers more than struggle and sacrifice.

The ocean is central to the life of San Diego County. Some may take it for granted, but no one can underestimate its value. It provides jobs, a reason for coming here, economic and spiritual revival. Even to those who live inland, it has meaning and magnitude. Who hasn’t moved here from someplace else without naively thinking that, naturally, they, too, would end up at the beach?

It affects the weather of San Diego County, as well as the image, the reputation, the personality. It is, like the county it braces, full of diversity and, often, surprises. The life styles that play themselves out on or near its shores are as different as the millionaires of Del Mar are from the “illegals” huddled in the shadow of Tijuana’s Bullring-by-the-Sea.

On a recent brisk morning, a reporter and photographer started at Oceanside at 8 in the morning, finding the serene beach almost eerily deserted. By nightfall, horsemen were mingling with the huddled illegals at Border Field State Park--at the southwestern tip of the United States. That scene was far removed from the Reeboks and designer swimwear of La Jolla Shores, where foreign visitors are of an entirely different kind.

Bertotti was the first person seen on a day offering nothing if not contrast and character. She rhapsodized about the peace and beauty of the water, while sounding fearful of what might happen.

“I dread the fear that one day they may put up oil wells and wreck it all,” she said. “Then I won’t know where to go.”

Bertotti was one of a handful of people at Oceanside, where the beach is clear and pristine. Its shores are surprisingly uncrowded. Tim Doyle, a local police officer, said the reason is found in the word “transition.”

“They’re rebuilding this pier here,” he said, pointing to a structure that used to be three times as long and, at 1,900 feet, was the longest pier on the entire West Coast. It was devastated by a storm a couple of years back. Its restoration should be complete by February, when, city officials hope, it will generate the income and foot traffic it once did.

“This is a real positive step,” Doyle said. “They had let the pier run down, even before the storm, and all you had were transients and low-lifes sitting on the end of it, drinking beer and falling off. It should have never been a pier just for winos. Now it’s coming back, but it’s slow. God, is it ever!”

Jerry Weber, a hard-hatted worker for the firm Crowley Constructors, said putting the pier back together poses a strange set of problems. It’s even harder, he said, than rebuilding the one at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro (which Crowley completed and thus qualified for this job with a bid of $5 million).

“Vandals took the dipstick out of that pumping device,” he said, pointing to a large tractor embedded in sand. It looked like something Sigourney Weaver might have left behind in “Aliens.”

“They also filled the radiator with soap,” Weber said, talking about folks who in his mind might as well be aliens. “It’s always something.” He looked around quickly, apprehensively. “You know, I just wouldn’t come here at night.”

Gary Spring, a tanned vendor selling hot dogs and cola, said he wouldn’t, either. He makes barely enough money to “pay costs.” It seems the Oceanside beach is all but deserted, even in daylight.

“I’ve walked beaches at Santa Monica, Newport, Laguna and Long Beach,” he said, “and they’re packed, even at night. This beach here is beautiful, but nobody comes. OK, it is in transition, but it looks to me like an uphill fight.”

Not far from Spring’s frankfurter stand was a private resort called St. Malo. A tough, burly ex-Marine guards the entrance, with no one allowed through--unless, of course, the guard was on coffee break, which he apparently was on a recent cool morning. He later showed up, acting tough and burly.

St. Malo offered uniformity in architecture and private driveways as uncluttered as the taverns of a western ghost town. Lifeguard Tom Wilson was walking up and down, up and down, gingerly raking sand on a natural volleyball court free of even a single pebble.

“Crowded?” he said. “Never. Only on July 4, and even then, not as much as you might expect. It’s just wealthy folks who come here. Either they live here, or they come for the summer. Most are from up around L.A.”

Not far from Wilson’s rake was Carlsbad State Beach and a campground overlooking the mountainous miles of water below. For $8 a day, campers can spend a maximum of seven days. They buy reservations through a ticket agency, and spaces are assigned by lottery. Mary Ann Myers, 16, says her family has come every summer since she was a year old. Their home is in Yorba Linda, near Anaheim.

Charles Bayles is 33 and unemployed. He was drying his laundry on a fence. Beyond lay the Pacific, for as many miles as the eye could see. Bayles’ family has come here or slightly south, to San Elijo State Beach, every summer for two decades. His mother, Mary Frances, 72, often brings her 8 children, 33 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

Bayles is separated from his wife.

“That’s my one and only,” he said, pointing to a 5-year-old girl with raven-like hair. “I figure I can’t do any better than that.”

Bayles likes the “stillness” of ocean life. He feels miles and days removed from the “humdrum” of Normal Heights, his home, barely half an hour away. He forgets his problems, he said, just looking out to sea. He’s annoyed, however, that the beach is eroding faster than vegetables in Chernobyl.

“Any more,” he said, “there just ain’t no beach here. It’s all rock, and the riptides are terrible. The benefits of camping here are great, though. Look at this. Some old boy left his carpet.”

A patch of carpet, big enough to cover a living room, supported Bayles and his rickety lawn chair.

“He also left a ton of firewood,” he said. “I could split hairs with that ax of mine, it’s so sharp, but I’ll be darned if I can cut a sliver of that wood. Stuff burns for hours.”

Past Bayles’ eternal fire, past the vegetarian cafes and folk-music huts of Leucadia, lies a lovely little beach known as Moonlight. Tons of new sand have been imported, and the crowd reflects the upturn in ingenuity and aesthetics.

Sandwiched among literally thousands of Encinitas sand worshipers was one very sunburned, very intense, young man. He offered an unusually firm handshake and a sad story.

“Why do I come to the beach?” asked Wayne Orendorff, a recent emigre from Seattle. “For consolation. I’m getting over a family tragedy. My father murdered my mother, then killed himself. It happened last fall. I’m helping my brother put the family--what’s left of it--back together.

“I don’t really like Southern California, nor do I like these beach scenes. I can’t believe the kind of hurry people are in. I notice this more since I’ve rearranged my priorities. I have a family, a wife and child, and you might say all of this has tested and emboldened my faith. If anyone out there has a family in trouble, please, please, pull it together before it’s finally too late.”

A happier scene unfolded a few feet away. Dave and Pam Matias from Corona, near Riverside, were sunning themselves with two bouncy kids, ages 3 years and 6 months. Stationed on a blanket, shaded by a giant umbrella, was a playpen. Lawn chairs and a diaper bag lay nearby. Dave was moaning. He forgot the stroller.

“I traveled with only a backpack for five years,” Pam said. “Now I can’t go two feet without a U-Haul.”

Moonlight was crowded, but Del Mar, Torrey Pines and La Jolla Shores were packed. At lovely, luscious La Jolla Shores, full of tourists and elite swimwear, Fahmi El-Shami kicked a soccer ball and ogled girls.

El-Shami is an Italian-born soccer player for United States International University. His friend, muscle-bound Steve Guinnipp, 23, said he moved to San Diego for just the sort of scenes he and El-Shami were taking in.

“I love the ocean, the women, the waves,” Guinnipp said, puffing on a cigarette. “I just like being around it--it ain’t Missouri, where I come from. I’ve been to Florida, but Florida was too bloody hot. This is priceless. This is wonderful. This is unbelievable.”

Christina Ruiz, 14, stood nearby, oblivious to the Show-Me man and his Middle Eastern footman doing funny things with the spotted ball. She stood, clothed and barefoot, looking out to sea with the moodiness of a pensive poet.

“My dad lives in Tijuana and my mom in Mexico City,” she said. “I’m just visiting, but I love it here. I can see why people want to stay here.”

Ruiz seemed lost in her own teen-age world. Up near the boardwalk, a gaggle of 14- and 15-year-old girls danced to a different drummer. Their beat, hardly the sound of silence, came from a “box.” They said the sounds coming out of the box were “music.”

Danielle Hansen, a 15-year-old Mira Mesa High School student, admitted coyly that she and her four friends come to the beach every single morning of the summer--by bus--because they’re all “pretty boy-crazy.”

“It just hits at this age,” she said with documentary-like seriousness, “and there’s not much you can do about it.”

Her friend, Aimee Blancett, 15, from University City High School, said a lot of “totally weird” people end up on the beach and sometimes harass the girls.

“This one guy wanted us to walk to the store with him,” she said. “He was so weird, talking to himself all the time. His shirt said, ‘I’m a Vet.’ ”

She looked puzzled.

“Why would a veterinarian be out here and not in the office, working on animals?”

Kirsten Bendall, 14, who used to live in South Africa, and Jennifer Dotson, 14, both from Mira Mesa High School, said they would never live anywhere else. They can’t fathom a place like Nebraska, where going to the beach is nothing more than a fantasy.

Hansen said she dreads Sept. 8--when school starts. She also dreads having to store 11 French-cut swimsuits in the closet for the beachless, school-marred winter ahead.

“There they’ll be,” she said apocalyptically, “just lying in the closet, gathering dust.”

Giovanni Bartoli, a 23-year-old USIU English student from Milan, Italy, said he also mourns the onrush of Sept. 8. It means the end of what he calls “my hustling of the young ladies. Ah, they look so fine in their swimwear.”

Joe Mandell, who is retired, will be overjoyed to see the arrival of Sept. 8 and what he hopes will be reduced decibel levels. He has complained frequently and bitterly, even to the City Council, about the cacophony at La Jolla Shores.

“I work hard my whole life to afford a place at a beach like this, and then I can’t enjoy it for the noise,” he said.

The coquettishness of La Jolla Shores, the “swingles” aggressiveness of Pacific Beach, the drunken revelry of South Mission Beach and the hippie fervor of Ocean Beach--”Did Woodstock really end?” one local asked--posed in stark contrast to the poverty and isolation of a place called Border Field State Park at the southwestern tip of the United States.

It was as far removed as it could be from the scenes playing themselves out along the Silver Strand, the area from the Hotel del Coronado to Imperial Beach. Wealthy tourists and families dominated that area, and, on certain sections of Coronado’s beaches, a few chose nudity as nature’s best swimwear.

The frivolity ended abruptly at Border Field State Park. Only a few horseback riders suggested anything having to do with leisure. This is, incidentally, the only beach in the county where riding is not only allowed but encouraged. The American side of the beach is strangely, eerily isolated--considering how lovely it is. The Mexican side suggests a waiting game of tension and hope.

The so-called “Tortilla Curtain” separating Mexico from the United States doesn’t really end--it peters out under the shadow of Tijuana’s Bullring-by-the-Sea. Suddenly, a common beach, between the two countries, free of Border Patrol agents and checkpoints, lies in waiting.

Groups of Latinos huddle fully clothed against a cool breeze, while their children play in water that some say is still contaminated by Mexican sewage. They sit against a backdrop of crumbling buildings--the result of several streets collapsing in a succession of brutal storms.

David Briant is a Hare Krishna who walks or jogs on the beach almost every day. He starts in Imperial Beach, where the locals, he said, just aren’t as friendly as their Mexican counterparts farther south.

Reebok and Nike shoes are glaringly absent here. Smiles and laughter, in some cases nervous laughter, take their place. Marcial, a portly, friendly man who asked that his last name not be published, comes to drink and to chat with amigos . He said the people huddled on the ground below are illegals, waiting for nightfall and the chance for freedom.

“Some will make it, but many won’t,” he said. “It’s too obvious, but they just don’t care. What do they have to lose? If they get caught, they won’t be deported, just rounded up and bused back to Tijuana, maybe for the chance to try again.”

Marcial said he won’t go closer to the water than the street up above. He’s deathly afraid of sharks and has been since the movie “Jaws,” which rings in his memory like a thousand bad dreams.

He isn’t just fearful, he’s sad. He is drawn to the spot by the border; he has been since his Tijuana boyhood. He can’t get over how it’s fading before his eyes.

“That restaurant down there,” he said, pointing to a rotting, abandoned edifice. “It was a work of art. It was built to last forever, but apparently it didn’t. Look at this trash.”

He kicked a broken beer bottle.

“People just don’t care anymore. I don’t care either. I just come here for a couple of beers. I come here to see my girls (his girlfriends) and hope my wife doesn’t find out.”

On this day, Marcial’s girls were nowhere in sight. Only his guilt and fear, and a kind of worry about the future, were in evidence.

He opened another beer, kicking the last bottle until it shattered. The glass trickled down between the cracks in the street, leading to a stream that, muddied with sewage, emptied out into the sea.

Tuesday: How the ocean gives San Diego its balmy weather.