The water’s just fine

Pounding waves, hidden pipe force delay of paddle race around pier, but some still venture into chilly seas.Gary Sahagen stood facing the ocean, his body silhouetted by the sun, which had managed to break through forbidding clouds early on New Year’s Day.

That was the lone ray of light for Sahagen, the chairman of the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum and a member of the Huntington Beach Longboard Crew. Clipboard in hand, Sahagen was standing at the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier, ready to oversee the staging of the 21st annual New Year’s Day Pier Paddle Race, with the course running out the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier and returning on the north side.

Expecting a field of perhaps 30 competitors for the scheduled 8:30 a.m. starting time of the race, Sahagan counted only five people ready to hit the water.

Stormy weather, high tides and continuous, treacherous sets with waves as high as 8 feet breaking straight through the pier -- not to mention a broken dredge pipe under the pier -- forced Sahagen to consider postponing the race.

“We’ll still have it, even if we have to put it off,” he said. “There are a couple of issues to contend with here today, and I want everything to go safely and smoothly.”

As it turned out, the race had to be postponed, and Sahagen said the race will return to its origins when it is held in February.

“We originally held this race on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, and that’s when we’ll reschedule it for,” he said.

“It works out perfectly, because we’ve been asked by the Pacific Shoreline Marathon to line the starting and finishing lines with 100 surfers dressed in wetsuits with their surfboards. We’ll probably hold the paddle race right after the marathon is finished.”

Eric Knopf of Huntington Beach came down to the shoreline Sunday to enter the paddle race.

“I read about it in the paper, and thought I’d give it a try,” said the 32-year-old, a resident of Huntington Beach. “I thought it’d be a nice way to start the new year.

“I plan on doing the 5K at the marathon next month, so doing the paddle race right after the run could work, if I get to that finish line.”

While Sahagen scouted the pier area for potential entries to the paddle race, members of the Halibut Society began to trickle down to the shore break at the south side of the pier.

Nearly 30 people associated with the Huntington Beach-based society, founded in 1980 and including past and present members of the Huntington Beach Unicorn rugby team, took a quick dip into the ocean, as has been a tradition for the past 25 years.

“We jump in, get wet and come out again. We don’t get crazy,” said John “Abbott” Doherty, 54, one of the founding members of the society.

Doherty retired from the rugby team, he said, in 1974.

“We started out with two people jumping into the water 25 years ago, and now we have more people come out every year,” he said. “It’s a standing tradition.”

Another local resident, Roger Mignosa, was looking for a New Year’s Day challenge Sunday.

He was home on Christmas break from studies at the University of Queensland in Australia and ready to head into the water -- rough, cold or not.

Starting the new year with a challenge is nothing new to Mignosa. Last year on New Year’s Day, the 25-year-old took part in a 100-mile bike race that took him from Long Beach to Dana Point and back.

He also completed at an Ironman competition in western Australia last month.

On Sunday, he got up early to take an hour’s run along the shoreline.

“I’m all warmed up from my run and really want to take a plunge,” Mignosa said. “The waves don’t bother me at all. I’m waiting for a challenge and ready to hit the water.”

Huntington Beach resident Lee Henry pretty much had the ocean to himself -- he was one of two surfers seen out in the water early Sunday.

“It was rough trying to get out there, but once I did, it was fine,” Henry said after emerging from the water. But if you’re wanting to swim out there, it’s pretty rough.

“If they’re waiting to have a paddle race,” he said, motioning to the group standing with Sahagen, “I’d say they aren’t going to have it.”20060105isjyh4ncDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / INDEPENDENT(LA)Although the annual paddle race around the Huntington Beach Pier was postponed due to high surf, the Polar Bear Plunge took place on schedule on New Year’s Day. Above, members of the Huntington Beach Unicorn Rugby Team lead the mad dash into the water. Below, Bob Coghill stands up to a large wave.20060105isjwuunc(LA).