Waving them off

Alex Coolman

Luc Peeney and Chris Bonna were scampering happily toward the water at

The Wedge on Monday, bodyboards shoved under their arms.

But the Huntington Beach residents hadn’t even reached the water’s edge

before the booming voice of a bodysurfer arrested their progress.

“Hey,” yelled the man in the water. “Black Ball!”

The bodysurfer pointed an authoritative finger down the beach, directing

Peeney and Bonna to pursue their bodyboarding elsewhere.

Welcome to summer in Balboa.

The Black Ball flag, which prohibits the use of flotation devices from 10

a.m. to 5 p.m., officially returned to The Wedge on Monday and will stay

in effect through Oct. 31, delighting the hard-core bodysurfers who

frequent the crunching shorebreak.

Peeney was somewhat less enthusiastic.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. He was concerned that the

fair-shaped, 2- to 4-foot surf might not be quite as tempting later in

the afternoon, after the changes of tide and wind.

But for a barrel-chested, long-haired bodysurfer who was drying himself

off by the jetty and identified himself only as Smoker, the coming of

Black Ball season was a reason to be glad.

“It’s the only way to keep it somewhat decent,” he said. “If you don’t do

that, you have all the skimboarders and the kneeboarders and the people

who want to ride surfboards. This way it gives everybody a chance.”

And if the the measure seemed a little draconian to the board riders

affected by it, Smoker said it was actually something they should be

grateful for. Back in the old pre-Black Ball days, he said, the ones

deciding who got to stay in the water were the biggest, meanest locals.

“This way’s a little more peaceable,” he said with a chuckle.

Checking the surf during a break from his job at Mother’s Market,

bodyboarder Czar Danilco said he could understand the logic behind the

daytime restrictions.

“It gets dangerous,” when it’s crowded, he said. “This place is dangerous

enough just to surf by yourself.”