Surfers Have a Swell Time in High Seas

It wasn’t quite the Big Wednesday of surfer lore, but an unusually large summertime swell on Wednesday kept Ventura County lifeguards on their toes and tantalized surfers with breakers up to 8 feet high.

Generated by a storm that hit the South Pacific last week with winds clocked at 60 knots, the swell was so big that lifeguards in Port Hueneme kept beach-goers on the sand.

“Only experienced surfers should go out,” said Port Hueneme lifeguard Erik Bear, 33.

Because Port Hueneme’s beach faces south, it got some of the heaviest pounding in Ventura County. But county beaches are protected by the Channel Islands, so local conditions were tamer than those farther south.

At Newport Beach’s famous ripping ground known as the Wedge, surfers braved fate in 20-foot waters. At Malibu’s Surfrider Beach, crashing 12-foot waves dwarfed dozens of boarders in the water.

Along the Los Angeles County coast, lifeguards rescued about 150 people by late Wednesday afternoon, most of them between Venice and Topanga State Beach.

Combined with regular tidal changes, the large waves also caused dangerous riptides at Port Hueneme, Bear said. Early in the day, the lifeguards took a 1 1/2-mile training swim in which the fast-moving current swept them under the city pier.

“It was pretty scary,” said rookie lifeguard Cande Diaz, 17, while she watched a handful of surfers try to pick off a set of waves peeling by the pier.

With Cande was 18-year-old Kerri Frontino, who has worked the beach for two years.

“The waves break pretty hard and fast, so it’s a tough swim,” Frontino said.

By 11 a.m., the lifeguards had already rescued two struggling swimmers who’d ignored warning flags.

Lifeguard John Rowe, 33, called it one of the biggest summer swells he’d seen in his nine years of working on the beach.

Around midday, Rowe had to make a dash up the sand to pull in a longboard surfer who had been swept a mile down the beach into a harbor jetty.

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Up the coast at San Buenaventura State Beach, 32-year-old lifeguard Scott Parrish said the park had called in extra lifeguards to work the beach towers.

“These can be very dangerous conditions,” Parrish said.

By early afternoon, the park lifeguards had pulled 10 people from the surf, he said.

The big waves are expected to peak today and slowly diminish over the next couple of days, said Rea Strange, whose Montecito-based Pacific Weather Analysis forecasts ocean conditions for offshore oil operations and the maritime industry.

The Channel Islands blocked the brunt of the swell from hitting Ventura, Strange said. The exposed western edge of the islands received some of the California coast’s heavier surf with waves up to 15 feet, he said.

But the consistent, clean swell was a boon for surfers, who got the chance to ride winter-sized waves in the summer sunshine.

“Oh, this is great,” said 37-year-old surfer Charlie Diaz of Los Angeles, standing on a bluff and watching the waves stack up at the county line across from the Neptune’s Net restaurant.

A musician by trade, Diaz sets his own work schedule and times his off hours to coincide with the waves.

“It’s a little walled up and closing out, so I’ll probably wait around, get some sun and watch the babes,” he said with a smile.

The surfers at county line brought up Big Wednesday as they talked about the huge waves, referring to a 1978 film about an awesome winter swell.

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On the beach was Scott Mathis, a Thousand Oaks 16-year-old who was still dripping wet from his two-hour surf session.

“It’s great. I got some really good rights,” said the breathless teen, referring to waves that break from right to left.

About noon up the coast at Ventura’s Surfers Point, the parking lot was overflowing with young and old wave riders alike. The water was equally crammed as everyone jockeyed for position.

At McGrath State Beach a few miles away, 60-year-old Harry Stonelake and about half a dozen other bodysurfers were the only ones in the water.

As Stonelake slipped on a florescent-red swimming cap, he scanned the surf line, watching the current tear a path.

“I stopped surfing last year--my legs were giving out. But I still get wet,” he said.

Then he dove into the surf with gusto and quickly kicked through the water, his neoprene cap bobbing in the foam of the breaking waves.

Staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this story.