Sea Lions

Take a flat-lander like Scott Zornig to the beach and what do you get?

Zornig, who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, chuckles at the thought.

“I discovered the sport of ocean distance swimming and fell in love with it,” he said.

Zornig, 40, will be among an estimated 400 people competing in one of several distance events at Saturday’s 32nd Seal Beach Rough Water Swim.

The 10-mile race, in which there will be about two dozen participants, begins at the Huntington Beach Pier at 6 a.m. and finishes at the Seal Beach Pier about three hours later. It will serve as a training exercise for Zornig, who plans to swim the 40-mile length of the Orange County coastline in late September.

Zornig said he will use the Fall event to raise money for City of Hope cancer hospital in Duarte.

“My wife had cancer two years ago and she was given a 20% chance of making it,” he said. “We took her to the City of Hope, where they were having an 80% chance of success with her type of cancer, and now she’s in remission.”

Zornig says he has had pledges totaling $7,000 for his longer swim. He doesn’t have a specific financial goal, but he’s hoping he can attract several corporate donors.

His plan to swim the county coastline makes the Seal Beach 10-mile swim seem like a picnic. The 40-mile swim from San Clemente to Seal Beach is expected to take almost a full day. Zornig believes he might be the first to attempt the feat. “My research indicates that swimming the county coastline hasn’t been done before,” he said.

A freestyle sprinter at Hanford High and Chico State, Zornig does most of his distance training now in a swimming pool, although he has been putting in two miles each day along his favorite stretches of coastline at Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. His longest distance event was last year’s 21-mile stretch from Divers’ Cove in Catalina to Point Vicente.

Seal Beach is his longest swim this year.

The rough water swim, one of the oldest organized ocean swims in California, features 1-mile, 3-mile and 10-mile courses, and shorter courses for youth races.

“We have some very serious swimmers out there this year,” race director Patricia McKane said. “It’s becoming a big deal. I think the word is getting out over the Internet and more long-distance swimmers around the country are getting to know about it.”

McKane said serious long-distance swimmers like to train in the cooler Pacific Ocean to build stamina for longer races. McKane expects teams from Arizona and Florida to compete.

Last year’s individual winner, Laural Hooper, a lifeguard from Laguna Beach, is expected to try to defend her title. She is the first female to win the race. Hooper, 25, won in a time of 3 hours 28 minutes 48 seconds. The record, 2:42:48, was set in 1990 by Michael Nelson.

Also expected to compete is 1998 champion Alex Kostich of Santa Monica.