Surf’s Down but Clean as Shoreline Reopens

Anthony Gorena was among the first to test the waters at a three-mile stretch of beach just opened after more than a month of being off limits.

When the 15-year-old Fullerton resident and his five high school friends first saw the choppy waves about 6 a.m. Saturday, the water was ominously dark under dusky skies. It looked like oil.

Then cloud-shrouded sunlight brightened the water and showed the sea to be a pristine blue. Anthony jumped in with his surfboard.

“It doesn’t even seem like there’s been an oil spill,” said Anthony, sheathing his flame-decorated surfboard in its cover later Saturday. “When you’re out there in the water it feels the same.”

Anthony joined hundreds of beach-goers Saturday who braved gray skies, chilly breezes and cold water to test the strip of beach just north of the Newport Pier. It was opened Friday night for the first time since Feb. 7, when a tanker punctured its hull with its own anchor and dumped 394,000 gallons of crude oil that blackened the water, covered rocks and sand and closed 14 miles of county beaches.

Today’s weather is expected to be about the same, with a 20% chance of rain and temperatures in the upper 50s.

But the inhospitable weather did not mean empty beaches Saturday: About 5,000 people came out here, and many were impressed with how clean the beaches were.

“This is the cleanest the beach has been in 10 years,” said Ken Donley, 18, a surfer from Orange. “There’s usually trash everywhere. And in the water, you don’t taste the oil or anything.”

Stunt kites chased gulls. Sandcastles were built. Couples strolled hand in hand. The sun even peeked through clouds for a couple of hours.

Just one thing was missing: The surf was unspectacular.

“It’s just flat,” complained Dan Morris, 14, of Placentia, dripping and shivering near his grounded bodyboard. “The waves have no power. It’s choppy. The first chance we got (to use the beach), and it’s not worth it.”

Down the beach, surfers had not yet given up on waves of one to two feet. They bobbed on their boards on the glimmering, sun-reflecting sea. Fins kicked and a figure rose for a brief ride before toppling over with a splash.

Not everyone agreed with the assessment of a clean beach.

Troy Ditt of Newport Beach was disgusted when he walked the beach Saturday morning and found hand-size gobs of tar that he thought came from the spill.

“I’m really disappointed,” Ditt said. “I’ve lived here for eight years, and I have never, never seen tar balls this big. These aren’t tar balls; these are tar patches.”

It was unclear Saturday what the source of the tar was. Coast Guard Lt. (j.g.) John Meehan said they may have come from about 300 tar seepage sites under the sea that range from Santa Barbara to Redondo Beach. He said the Feb. 28 earthquake may have agitated and enlarged the seepage openings.

“It’s not our view that it’s related to the spill,” said Meehan, chief of the Coast Guard’s marine environmental response division at the marine safety office in Long Beach.

Beaches from Ventura County to San Clemente, well outside the oil spill’s range, have reported tar floating to shore since the quake, he said.

Nevertheless, the Coast Guard took samples for its labs to determine the tar’s origin, he said.