Surfing at Salt Creek State Beach : Parmenter Advances After a Brush With Interloper

For a few minutes Saturday, professional surfer John Parmenter became an amateur enforcer.

A renegade surfer strayed into the competition zone at the start of his sixth-round heat in the Dive N’ Surf Pro-Am surfing tournament, and when the surfer refused to leave, Parmenter got tough.

“He was at least 6-1,” the stocky Parmenter said afterward, “but Mike Tyson is 5-10.”

Although Parmenter threw no punches, he used his surfboard to spear the “longboarder” when he came at him.

“He shouldn’t have been out there,” said Parmenter, of Huntington Beach. “There should have been lifeguards (to stop him). I gave him a ding in the board and in the leg.”

That was enough to scare off the interloper, but Parmenter said he was so distracted, he almost lost the heat. He finished second to Dino Andino of San Clemente. The top two in each heat of four qualified for the quarterfinals at 9:25 a.m. today.

Parmenter and Andino were two of 13 Orange County surfers to advance in the event at Salt Creek Beach Park in Laguna Niguel. Only three of the quarterfinalists reside outside the county, and only one, Rich Rudolph of Florida, lives outside California. The Orange County qualifiers included San Clemente’s Shane Beschen, 17, the only amateur to make it, and Dana Point’s Mike Cruickshank. Cruickshank, 31, qualified on a spare surfboard after breaking a fin in an altercation with an unauthorized bodyboarder during practice, minutes before his heat.

The surfers had enough problems with the waves without battling non-competitors. Each surfer is judged on his best four of 10 rides in a 20-minute heat. Because of inconsistent waves, some surfers had trouble turning in four good rides.

One casualty was Oceanside’s Mike Lambresi, the top-seeded surfer. The two-time defending champion of the Bud Pro Surfing Tour lost in his first round of surfing--the fifth.

By virtue of his high ranking, Lambresi was excused from the early rounds, which began Wednesday. But he was upset by Gary Clisby of Huntington Beach and Randy Wright of Venice. With Lambresi out, the favorites become third-seeded Andino and second-seeded Todd Chesser of San Diego, who also qualified. The semifinals are set to start at 11:35 a.m. today, and the final is at 12:50 p.m. today. The bodyboarding competition resumes at 8 a.m. today. Of the 16 bodyboarding quarterfinalists, eight live in Orange County.