Camp rides wave of success

Jerry Elder admits that it wasn’t a great summer for surfing in

Newport Beach. Not only was the water unusually cold, but the beaches

were hit by an invasion of jellyfish that, according to lifeguards,

stung hundreds of people.

“This is the most unusual summer I’ve seen here,” said Elder, who

runs the Newport Surf Camp on the Balboa Peninsula with his son Todd.

Thankfully, Elder said, adverse conditions didn’t stop dozens of

children from enrolling in the camp this summer. Some came from as

far away as Korea and Italy -- and others signed up multiple times.

“Surfing is way different for me, because I just go in boats and

stuff,” said Julia Donovan, 9, who spends much of the year river

rafting near her home in Sun Valley, Idaho. Julia enrolled in the

class this summer while visiting her aunt and friend in Southern

California.

The surf camp, a weeklong course for children 6 to 16, began in

June and runs until the beginning of September. Participants in the

class -- some beginners, some seasoned veterans -- start the week by

learning how to balance on surfboards and studying water-safety

essentials. Then they venture into the water to work with

instructors.

The camp provides the wet suits and surfboards. To warm up before

every four-hour session, enrollees jog around the beach and do

push-ups and stretches.

Along the way, there are a few surfing tips not covered in any

Beach Boys song. On the first day of class, Elder and the other

instructors teach the “stingray shuffle,” in which surfers shuffle

their feet while entering the water to shoo stingrays out of their

paths.

“It’s the vibration,” said Maddie Peckenpaugh, 11, of Newport

Beach. “They know something’s coming that’s bigger than them, so they

get out of the way.”

By all accounts, the shuffle worked. Elder said all his students

had made it through the summer without a single sore foot.

“I’ve never been stung by a stingray or a jellyfish, but there’s a

first time for everything,” Maddie said.

Jennifer Stucky, one of the program’s instructors, said surfing

was often a challenge for people who live outside of California’s

beach culture. Some of the camp’s foreign visitors grow up near

shorelines, but not always the American kind.

“They’ve been in the ocean, but it’s different,” Stucky explained.

“Where they come from, they don’t really have big waves.”

* SCHOOL’S OUT is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Michael Miller visits a summer camp within the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about the experience.