Wave of the Future

From a distance, the five lifeguards could have been stand-ins for a “Baywatch” episode. They had the killer beach tans, the red trunks of California lifeguards, and rad sunglasses.

Nothing unusual about these guys--except that up close, they could be heard speaking Spanish. The word for ocean waves is olas, a subject that Jose Luis Estrada Torres knows much about.

Estrada, 27, is part of a unique exchange program that has brought five volunteer lifeguards--salvavidas--from the Mexican resort of Puerto Escondido, located on the Oaxacan coast about 200 miles southeast of Acapulco, for training with Southern California’s elite lifeguard agencies.

They are spending a week in Huntington Beach, which has adopted Puerto Escondido as a sister city, and another week with lifeguards in Los Angeles County.

The program’s goal is to certify Estrada and the other four visitors as international instructors who can, in turn, train and certify a legion of lifeguards in Oaxaca, then possibly at other Mexican resorts where there are no lifeguard agencies.

“Coming here has been a dream of ours for a long time,” said Estrada, who is captain of Puerto Escondido’s dozen volunteer lifeguards. “This gives us a lot of motivation to see what professional lifeguards do in other countries.”

Estrada’s friend Daniel Herrera, 26, enjoyed briefings by Huntington Beach lifeguard Matt Karl, a 15-year veteran and one of the agency’s fastest swimmers. By contrast, Herrera makes his living by owning a discotheque and volunteers his time with no pay.

“I’m not in that good of shape,” Herrera confided, pointing to Karl. “These guys can swim for miles and they don’t even breathe hard. And, as far as knowing about lifesaving, they have it down to a science.”

Robert Burnside, 65, retired chief of the Los Angeles County lifeguard agency, who now lives in Palm Desert, pushed for the exchange after visiting Puerto Escondido eight years ago while on vacation.

“They used to have about 30 to 40 drownings a year there,” Burnside said. “The area is called ‘Mexpipe,’ the equivalent of Hawaii’s Pipeline, but it gets twice as big as Pipeline gets. When I first visited and saw the size of the surf and these guys on paddleboards and surfboards trying to do their best to be lifeguards, it was a sight.”

At that time, Estrada said, Puerto Escondido’s lifeguards had no equipment. No fins, no portable radios, no lifeguard towers and no Burnside buoys, which are the red flotation devices lifeguards always keep at the ready. The buoys were developed by the retired chief.

“We had swim trunks, that’s it,” said Estrada, who with his wife sells swim trunks and surf apparel marketed under the Mexpipe name.

Yet, the main beach in Puerto Escondido, Playa Zicatela, is arguably one of the most treacherous in the world. Sandy and picturesque, Zicatela hides from its thousands of tourists from the U.S., Europe and around the world dangers that include a shore break that snaps surfboards like pretzels and an undertow that sucks swimmers sideways and out to sea.

“We can have 10-foot waves crash in about 18 inches of water,” Herrera said. “It’s very shallow there and if you walk out too far our waves can come up and sweep you off your feet and drown you.”

Burnside, under the umbrella of the 8,000-member United States Life Saving Assn., helped Estrada find a group of good swimmers, including Herrera, who were willing to serve as volunteer lifeguards. That was three years ago. Since then, Burnside and Huntington Beach lifeguards, who have a USLSA chapter, have contributed money to send used equipment to Puerto Escondido.

No one has drowned while the lifeguards have been on patrol, which is only about 2 1/2 months out of the year, Estrada said.

“That’s why our visit here has been a dream,” Estrada said. “We’re interested in educating the Mexican public about water safety, and how to organize a lifeguard agency so that [the Mexican] government can help support us.”

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Said Valdivieso Suastegui, a government planning official from the state capital of Oaxaca, who is traveling with the five lifeguards, said the state is interested in adding lifesaving to its Department of Civil Protection, an umbrella agency that includes law enforcement.

The government’s Department of Tourism paid for the group’s flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles. While in Huntington Beach, they were guests at homes of local lifeguards.

Valdivieso said he was sent to observe how the Huntington Beach lifeguard agency is run. When he returns to Mexico, he intends to submit a master plan that could result in state support for the Puerto Escondido lifeguards.

“Of course, we cannot have something like they have [in Huntington Beach],” Valdivieso said, as his eyes scanned jet skis, portable radios, television monitors and rooms full of equipment at lifeguard headquarters. “Their equipment is overwhelming. With our economic crisis in Mexico, [the most] I can do is help with a plan to buy some equipment and possibly provide support.”

The Huntington Beach lifeguards have high hopes for the program.

“More than anything else,” said lifeguard Lt. Mike Beuerlein, “this education and training will legitimize the Puerto Escondido lifeguards in the eyes of the authorities in Mexico. They’ve taken it upon themselves to go out and get the training, and we hope we’ve helped them.”

The USLSA has proposed building a lifeguard headquarters in Puerto Escondido and is having California’s lifeguard training manual translated into Spanish.

Burnside has set up fund for the project through the USLSA, a private, nonprofit organization. Anyone wishing to contribute can send donations to the USLSA, P.O. Box 242, Huntington Beach, CA 92640.