Site of Over-the-Line Tournament Is No Island Paradise

Close your eyes, please, and bring an image into focus.

Think of a place called Fiesta Island and tell me what you see.

Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins exploring the Blue Lagoon?

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton cavorting in Night of the Iguana?

Gilligan’s Island?

I see a tropical paradise with drinks served in coconuts. I see jungle vines, palm trees, ferns and orchids. I see bubbling springs and waterfalls. I see thatched huts and soft, white sand.

Fiesta Island would be a place you would not mind beaching your yacht and hoping you were never discovered . . . or, more importantly, it was never discovered.

These were all thoughts which crossed my mind a few years ago when I moved to San Diego and discovered this place called Fiesta Island along the east side of Mission Bay. I couldn’t wait to see what such a place might be like.

Shortly thereafter, I was advised that the World Championship of Over-the-Line would be contested over two weekends on that very same Fiesta Island. I knew nothing about OTL, but I did know about Fiesta Island. At least I thought I did.

When I actually arrived at Fiesta Island, I thought I had taken a wrong turn . . . but I didn’t remember going through Barstow. I wondered how a chunk of Death Valley came to be dropped into the middle of Mission Bay.

Who named this place? The same person who named Greenland?

If this place was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you’d chance a 2,000-mile swim through shark-infested waters rather than hang around. It would be an excellent place to send your mother-in-law on a picnic.

Fiesta Island has the perfect habitat for camels, and not much else. Weeds won’t even grow there.

Saddam Hussein could have spent the entire Persian Gulf War hidden in a bunker on Fiesta Island and no one would have known. He could still be there.

In a sense, it is a little bit like Australia. It has a road around its perimeter--4.2 miles, according to my pedometer--and no one ventures into its interior. Jimmy Hoffa could be living there for all anyone would know.

For 50 weekends a year, Fiesta Island’s shores are populated, to use the word loosely, by people who are not fussy about what they call going to the beach. The sand is so hard you could pull an 18-wheeler to the water’s edge and set up for a barbecue.

Campfires line the shores of Fiesta Island in the dark, which is about the only time of day it does not look so desolate. It is BYOW, as in bring your own wood. There’s nothing to burn, though bombing would not be a bad idea.

I don’t know why anyone would want to take an RV onto Fiesta Island, unless maybe they just did not want to use all the gas it would take to get to the Mojave Desert.

However, we have now come upon those two weekends a year when the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club holds its annual, roll the steel drums, World Championship of Over-the-Line. They must have it on Fiesta Island because the General Dynamics parking lot is not available.

Astonishingly, Fiesta Island will be packed both days of both weekends. Get there after 10 a.m. and you can’t get there, unless you take a shuttle bus or parachute or maybe a camel.

What’s amazing is that real people subject themselves to the primitive conditions on this godforsaken island to watch a game they would not bother to watch if it was taking place in their own backyards. They might admit it only in the confessional, but they’re there.

If you see the couple next door sneaking out the door with a false beard and a wig and over-sized dark glasses, they are off to Fiesta Island. Confront them with it and they are more likely to claim they are dodging creditors. After all, no upstanding citizens a) go to Fiesta Island or b) go to OTL.

Given that someone has the notion that this might be a place (or an event) to visit, be aware that you almost have to pack like you are going on a camping trip. There are no convenience stores nor flush toilets nor watering holes where anything stronger than soft drinks can be procured. Folding chairs are also recommended.

What you have to be, in essence, is sort of a desert tortoise. The more self-contained you are, the better your chances for survival.

To be fair, I should mention that I will not be going to Fiesta Island this year.

Unfortunately, OTL conflicts with the company picnic.

We’re all going to a place called Paradise Park.

I hear it’s a landfill.