Small waves keep summer crowds down

Hotels in Huntington Beach posted record sales this summer, but a

lack of waves was a bummer for the city’s surfing community.

A massive swell is expected to rage along Orange County beaches

this weekend. For most of the summer, however, Huntington Beach saw

one- and two-foot waves.

“This was a pretty bad summer for surfing,” said surf forecaster

Sean Collins, founder of Surfline.com.

A lack of tropical hurricanes in the southern hemisphere has been

responsible for the dud waves locally, Collins said, sending area

pros to spots such as Indonesia and South Africa for bigger swells.

And a persistent red tide -- caused by phytoplankton blooms that

never seemed to go away -- produced months of blood-red water.

Collins said an usually cold winter meant that ocean waters took

longer to warm up for the summer, creating cold conditions that

allowed the plankton to flourish.

Beach attendance also was down slightly, said Kyle Lindo, the

city’s chief of marine operations, although the red tide was not

likely the culprit.

Lower-than-normal temperatures and the spike in gas prices stopped

many from visiting the beach, he suggested.

Despite a heat wave in late July and another in August, Lindo said

cooler temperatures in the Inland Empire kept visitors from

descending on Surf City.

“It just didn’t seem like we were getting that beachy weather,” he

said.

For the year, about 7.6 million have visited the beach, down from

about 8 million at this point last year.

During the summer peak season, from Memorial Day to Labor Day,

about 5.1 million people visited city beaches, Lindo said.

Lindo reported a spike in jellyfish stings -- about 5,712

complaints, way up from last year. Beach rescues, he said, dropped to

just a little under 1,100.

“That really says that the lifeguards are doing their jobs to

prevent accidents by warning people about dangerous places to swim

and play,” he said.

The city’s hotels enjoyed a spike this summer, said Doug Traub,

chief of the conference and visitor’s bureau.

During the month of July, hotels saw their revenues climb 17% to

generate about $6.7 million.

“It think you can attribute a lot of that to the economy,” Traub

said.

“And you can’t underestimate the amount of media exposure the city

received.”

A lot of that media came from the city’s battle with Santa Cruz

over which was the true “Surf City, USA,” Traub said.

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