DANA POINT : Blind Group Visits, ‘Sees’ the Beach

On a warm but breezy day, with the beach sand between her toes, Robyn Vanlerberghe couldn’t resist the temptation.

She strolled shin-deep into the ocean, letting the wind-swept waves lap at her legs.

“I miss everything about the beach,” said Vanlerberghe. “The sun, the sounds, the smell, everything.”

Vanlerberghe, 35, and five other students spent Tuesday absorbing it all at Dana Point Harbor. But to learn how it looked, these students from Braille Institute’s Orange County Center in Anaheim relied on either what limited eyesight they had or the detailed descriptions of Harry Helling and Linda Blanchard of the Orange County Marine Institute.

Some, like Vanlerberghe, who lost her eyesight after being stricken with diabetes, are totally blind. Others in the group could see at very close range.

On a park bench outside the Marine Institute, before their trip to the tide pools, Helling described the ocean as “one of the most diverse environments in California” filled with more than 200 species of animals, most of them sharing a common bond with the visitors from the Braille Institute.

“Like most of the animals of the sea, sight is not the most important sense for a sea star,” Helling said. “Because it is a wavy and often very dark environment, creatures of the sea, like the sea star, see light and dark only and rely on a good sense of smell.”

With the help of a guide, the students worked their way along the rocks to the tide pools, with its crabs, snails, barnacles, sea anemones and octopuses.

The tide-pool tour is one part of the second annual, three-day Touch for Sight 1990, a group of events co-sponsored by the Braille Institute, Orange County and the Dana Point Harbor Assn. Other activities include a walking tour through the harbor’s Mariners Village, which allows them to touch a variety of art objects, a visit to the Marine Institute’s laboratory, and, on Thursday, a fishing trip.

“We bring either those who ask to come or are better able to handle this kind of trip,” said Braille instructor Joe Buffomante. “Some of them are totally blind, others can see such things as signal lights or have some sort of light perception.”

Brad Grabill of Irvine and Cindy Hackworth of Downey ventured out on the rocky point, picking their way slowly over the rocks.

With the help of Helling and Blanchard, the pair allowed some snails, hermit crabs and a sea urchin to meander about their hands. When Grabill consented to venture farther out, toward the breaking waves, Hackworth applauded his bravery.

“You are a very daring person, Brad,” she said.

“Trusting, not daring,” Grabill responded.