DANA POINT : Reclaimed Skills Are the Catch of the Day

Afraid of the dark, Pat Dalton gradually shut herself out from the world as eye disease slowly eroded her vision.

Dalton, 37, found herself making excuses not to pursue an active life--avoiding the chance to swim in the ocean, take classes at a local college or even ride a bus.

“I isolated myself,” said Dalton, who suffers from macular degeneration, an eye disease that can eventually cause blindness. “I was cutting more and more things from my life, saying, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do that.’ I was afraid.”

But there was no fear in her eyes on Tuesday during a fishing expedition with 30 other blind or partially sighted people, part of a three-day series of events for the visually impaired held at the Dana Point Harbor this week.

“I caught some seaweed, then snagged the bottom of the boat,” said Dalton, who began resuming an active lifestyle just a few years ago with the help of the Braille Institute’s Orange County center. “Then I caught a calico bass. This was the first time I’ve ever been fishing, and it was wonderful.”

This was the sixth year that the Braille Institute and the Dana Point Harbor Assn. have given blind students a chance to experience the wonders of the harbor--despite their visual handicap.

“Even if you can’t experience the harbor with your eyes, you can still hear the birds, smell the sea breezes, hear the listing of the boats,” said Brent Sewell, 43, who is nearly blind from diabetic retinopathy. “I have a good imagination and can draw a very good picture of how things are in my mind.”

About 90 students participated over three days ending Thursday. In addition to the fishing expedition, students were led on a walking tour of the harbor and made up the first group to ride the Orange County Marine Institute’s new 70-foot floating laboratory.

Local harbor merchants pooled their resources to make the tours possible. A sportfishing charter provided boats and employees free of charge, and a seafood restaurant in the harbor offered up food to the students all three days.

“Like me, they’re all in love with the harbor, and we want to share it with everyone,” said Dee Bower, a spokesperson for the Harbor Assn., who started the event.

For the Braille Institute, the tours highlight its mission to give students back some or all of the skills lost to eye disease or accident.

“We want to let our students know that their lives aren’t over,” said Wanda Graziani, director of the institute’s Orange County center. “You can still go fishing, you can still take walks.”

Dalton took the message to heart after joining the institute a few years ago. For the first time in decades, she braved the ocean and felt the waves slap against her body. Then she took up roller-skating and snow skiing.

“The fear of the outside world for a blind person is enormous,” Dalton said. “There are physical realities to accept, but it doesn’t stop me from trying new things.”