Help! Help! Wanted

With gusto and grit, 55 fit young men and women charged into the bright blue waters off Laguna Beach on a clear Sunday morning to see whether they have what it takes to become a city lifeguard.

The showing was one of the largest in recent memory and the field one of the strongest, giving Chief Lifeguard Mark Klosterman hope that he will be able to fill his ranks without a struggle for the first time in years.

“We’ve got a lot of potential here,” Klosterman said after the grueling tryouts were over. “This is a great start-up. If this works out right, we’ll have all our staffing needs met--no doubt.”

Lifeguard tests have long been an annual spring rite, and in many cases an annual rite of passage, in beach communities everywhere.

But Laguna Beach and other Southern California cities have been scrambling to attract enough applicants.

Klosterman, who has been on Laguna’s staff for 26 years, said the regional demand mirrors a national trend, and is largely driven by two factors.

First, he said, there is more affluence along the coast, and wealthy kids don’t have to work.

Second, more high school and college sports programs are adopting year-round training programs, draining the pool of athletes who might otherwise serve as lifeguards.

“In the old days, you could put one flier up and have people knocking down your door,” Klosterman said. “In the past few years, it hasn’t been so.”

With a string of sandy beaches and isolated coves along its jagged 7.5-mile shoreline, the city needs 90 to 100 lifeguards in the summer. Sixty work full time for the season and the rest are reserves, earning $13 to $18 an hour, one of the highest pay scales around.

The city’s Marine Safety Department launched an aggressive recruitment campaign this year.

Staff members traveled pool-to-pool, visiting high schools and colleges around Orange County to publicize the opportunities and encourage students to try out.

This year’s aspiring lifeguards couldn’t have asked for better conditions as they lined up in front of the lifeguard tower at Main Beach on Sunday. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the tide was low, and the ocean was almost 60 degrees.

The test, which Klosterman says has not really changed in 30 years, has three legs. First comes a 1,000-meter swim, which must be completed in under 20 minutes. Next is the run-swim-run test, with each leg 200 meters. Last is a 200-meter swim.

With dolphins diving in the distance, seabirds wheeling overhead and friends and families cheering from the boardwalk, the candidates plunged into the surf about 9 a.m. . Everyone finished within 20 minutes, panting hard and shivering in the breeze as they emerged from the sea.

Katie Hedley, 16, was the first woman out of the water, finishing 11th overall. She plays water polo and swims for El Toro High School in Lake Forest.

“It’s fun. I love the water. I really liked the swimming part,” she said, still breathing heavily moments after finishing the final leg .

Hedley hopes to be among the 40 applicants picked to go through training in April.

Those selected will spend every weekend that month going through more physical fitness drills, and learning first aid and advanced lifesaving techniques.

“It’s a pretty well-respected job. It definitely takes a big commitment for whoever goes through with it,” said Andrew Engstrom, another lifeguard candidate. “I’m kind of out of shape, so I’m hurting, personally.”

Engstrom, a freshman at Northern Arizona University, grew up in Laguna and played high school water polo. He tried out last year too, but couldn’t complete the training because he had to go to summer school.

Olivia Rohde, a 16-year-old junior at Dana Hills High School who won the Teen California beauty pageant in August, said she has wanted to be a lifeguard ever since she started watching “Baywatch,” and developed a crush on David Hasselhoff.

But as a competitive swimmer, water polo player and sailor, she knows the job is not as glamorous as television makes it out to be.

“I think it’d be really cool when people ask you what you do and you can say, ‘I’m a lifeguard,’” she said. “But I think it will be challenging. It’s a big responsibility. It’s not sitting and getting a tan. It’s intense. It’s not as easy as it seems.”