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.