Sun Takes a Day Off at Beach

Menacing stingrays and jellyfish, ornery riptides and an obstinate marine layer tried to thwart the unofficial first day of summer 2000 in Orange County, but hearty and hopeful beach-goers were undaunted.

“We won’t be deterred,” said Tim Hastings, 53, of Orange, who celebrated Memorial Day at Huntington State Beach with four generations of his family and hundreds of other coast-huggers.

“You could walk across the heads at Main Beach,” said Mike Scott, a lifeguard at Laguna Beach, where an estimated 30,000 people packed the sand under cloudy skies that Scott described as “ugly.”

Nonetheless, herds of humanity--more than 250,000 people--crowded Orange County beaches for Memorial Day picnics and volleyball games. Lifeguards from Huntington Beach to San Clemente reported dozens of rescues, fishing swimmers out of the grasp of strong rip currents.

“We’ve had small to moderate surf, but really large rip currents,” said Marine Safety Lt. Bill Humphreys at San Clemente Beach. The reason: “the direction of the swell, and because the bottom is still chewed up from winter. There’s a lot of deep holes out there, and that churns up the current.”

At Huntington State Beach, some people shivered under towels and blankets on the same coastal stretch that was closed for much of last summer because of contaminated water. On Monday, the beach was open for pleasure, but the water temperature was an uninviting 65 degrees and the sun was remarkably shy, making only a cameo appearance.

“We’re going home to swim in a nice warm pool,” said Brian Keep, 17, of Chino Hills as he and two friends retreated about 12:30 p.m. to the Inland Empire.

The nippy weather didn’t dissuade Kevin Snow, 33, or his wife and three small daughters. “We’re from Utah, so this is warm to us,” Snow said.

The Snows weren’t the only out-of-towners. Jellyfish and stingrays made the beach scene this weekend, causing a stir and more than a hundred stings at area beaches, lifeguards said.

“We had quite a few stingrays,” John Anderson, a lifeguard at Bolsa Chica state beach in Huntington Beach, said Monday afternoon. “We sent quite a few people back up to headquarters, and had them soak their feet in water for 30 minutes to an hour.”

There were fewer jellyfish sightings on Monday than Sunday--when the water was a bit warmer and the creatures were feeling adventuresome. “It’s their reproductive season,” explained Kathleen Snow, a Huntington State Beach lifeguard.

But some didn’t live to tell the tale.

“Jellyfish are real fragile. When they hit the surf lines, they get beaten up and broken up,” said Scott, the Laguna Beach lifeguard. “They’re all broken into pieces. You can see little globules of them everywhere.”

Hastings showed up at Huntington State Beach at 7 a.m., when there were just three other groups at the beach. He arrived that early to claim a choice 40-foot section of sand. Then he went to work, setting up a blue and white cabana, a cook stove for coffee and tea (for grandma) and his gas grill. The rest of his extended family arrived at 9 a.m.

Hastings, a self-described “cooking machine,” artfully dabbed barbecue sauce on columns of pale chicken legs. He rattled off the rest of his menu: baked beans, chips, dip, kielbasa sausages and burgers. The cool breeze didn’t bother him.

“We rough it camping in the rain,” he said. “Besides, if it was too hot and sunny I might get sunburned.”

Twenty feet away, 3-year-old Ryan Richardson was learning to play volleyball. Why was he spending the day at the beach? The Anaheim toddler responded: “Because I’m big.”