Beach, Blanket . . . Bingo : Thousands Crowd the Shore--and Still Manage to Get Away From All the Hassle

SUNSET BEACH — The group of bikini-clad young women were lounging lazily on a beach blanket, munching on chips and crackers and appreciating the ocean waves bubbling in the foreground and the sea gulls flying overhead.

The breezy, blue-skied, sun-drenched day was the perfect setting for their chatter.

“The lifeguard has cute dimples,” Sharalyn Tillit, 15, of Westminster was saying. “He’s very cute, very tan. It was a very good idea to come to the beach today.”

None of her laughing friends could argue the point.

Nor would hundreds of thousands of other beach-goers who flocked to the coast Saturday to enjoy the first day of a long holiday weekend that made the gloom and overcast skies of June a distant memory. From the sands of Seal Beach to the coastline of San Clemente, people of all ages filled most beaches to capacity as they basked under the golden rays, built sandcastles and frolicked in the foam.

“It’s sunny and warm, and there’s not a cloud in the sky,” a Laguna Beach lifeguard observed. “The water is warm and full of laughing children. There’s basketball going on on the court. People are having a good time. It is a perfect summer day.”

Norma Lyons, 27, decided Saturday was a great day to meet at the beach with some of her female friends from the Upper Room Church in Westminster to talk about whatever happened to be on their minds. They ended up discussing boys and lifeguards.

“They’re better topics when you’re surrounded by sand and water,” said 14-year-old Nikki Zimmer, who in recognition of Independence Day, wore a red, white and blue stars-and-stripes bikini.

Jacki Tyler, 26, of Whittier, came to the beach to tan and relax.

“I need to get some color,” Tyler said as she leaned back on her beach chair facing the waves. “It’s so relaxing here. You can read. You can go in the water. Every so often, you can see the dolphins.”

Margaret Heyward of Huntington Beach brought her visiting mother and twin sister to Sunset Beach to do what they always do when they come to the beach: play Scrabble. But the board game was momentarily forgotten as they were lulled by the gentle breeze and sidetracked by the hot Hollywood topic of the day.

“This is a really nice atmosphere to be having a discussion on Hugh Grant, and how we just couldn’t imagine why he had to do what he had to do,” said Heyward’s sister, Ellen Nisbet, 44, a resident of Marin County, regarding the actor’s recent arrest in Hollywood on suspicion of engaging in lewd conduct with a prostitute. “We don’t have conversations like this often.”

“No, not at all,” chimed in her mother, 74-year-old Betty Fleischman, who lives in South Carolina and whose Southern drawl is as thick as honey. “This whole day, whole atmosphere is lovely, just lovely. You just couldn’t ask for a better day to leave the house.”

For Heyward, the most inviting feature the beach offers is a getaway from her hectic house, which this week is home to eight adults and children.

“It’s so nice here because at home. . . . it’s so loud and wild and crazy,” she said. “Here we can just talk and relax.”

And hopefully, eventually play Scrabble, once mother and daughters were done talking about the Englishman who went to Hollywood and got arrested.