A perfect clean-up set
RICK FIGNETTI
Coming up this Saturday is the 19th annual California Coastal
Clean-up at a beach near you. This end-of-summer feat is
approximately 400,000 volunteers strong, as beach lovers get together
to do some good for mother nature.
The event started in 1985 with a few volunteers at a couple
California beaches, but now is up and down the majority of the
coastline with families, students, service groups, friends and
neighbors pulling together and taking care of a fragile marine
environment.
Since 1993 they’ve removed an estimated 8.5-million pounds of
debris off the beaches at 400 clean-up sites. If you want to be part
of the solution to the marine pollution problem, locally there will
be a few clean up sites: the pier at Main and Pacific Coast Highway;
Huntington State Park; Bolsa Chica State Park; and Bolsa Chica
Wetlands. The clean-up groups will be there from 9 a.m. to noon.
Other areas include Newport Beach, from the west jetties to the
Santa Ana River mouth; Salt Creek Beach Park; Doheny Beach; and San
Onofre.
Or if ya happen to be on the beach, just pick up a piece of trash
and put it in the right place, the trash can, not just Saturday but
every time your there. For more information, call 1-800-COAST4U.
The National Scholastic Surfing Assn.’s new 2003-04 tour started,
with the Open Season being run at Oceanside earlier in the month.
The San Clemente brother duo, Pat and Dane Gudauskas, swept the
one and two spots in the mens division final with some big action
packed moves. Last year’s national final winner at Lowers, Pat,
couldn’t be stopped to take an early ratings lead.
Younger brother Tanner G, took juniors and Huntington High’s Marty
Weinstein, the 2003 explorer boys champ, came in third.
In the mini groms, Newport Beach’s Andrew Doheny, the south west
conference champ, won again, while fellow Newport resident Ford
Archibald coming in a close third.
And in the women, last years National Governor’s Cup winner Erica
Hosseini placed second in a tight one.
The National Scholastic Surfing Assn. inducted its 2003 Hall of
Famers on Saturday after the event. Among the inductees was Kalani
Robb, a former NSSA opens men’s national champ, top 16 World
Championship Tour standout and U.S. Open winner here in H.B. inducted
in the men’s and H.B. resident Janice Aragon, a world amateur champ
in 1984 and a national champ too, as well as an NSSA executive
director for many years inducted in the women.
Founding NSSA fathers, proud of what they started, Chuck Allen,
Tom Gibbons, Rob Hill and the late John Rothrock, who was Edison
High’s first surf coach, were also inducted.
Plus, in the Academics and Business division, Evan Slater, the
current editor of Surfing Mag, big wave-rider extraordinaire, and
four-time national champ was voted in too.
Doing the master of ceremony’s was local Peter Townend, a former
world champ, Surfing Magazine publisher and Northside bowl slasher.
This weekend is the start of the Explorer Season in Huntington at
Ninth Street, look for the competition to be fierce.
It looks like Hurricane Linda, off the tip of Baja, Mexico, is
forecasted to send some surf our way, and today could be the day, at
the south-facing beaches.
Hopefully she’ll sent some warm tropical water too. Watch out,
don’t bust your favorite stick in half, and maybe it’ll hold for the
contest. See ya in the barrel. Fig over and out.
* RICK FIGNETTI is an eight-time West Coast champion, has
announced the U.S. Open of Surfing the last nine years and has been
the KROQ-FM surfologist for the last 17 years, doing morning surf
reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at
(714) 536-1058.
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