Never a dull moment in Pacific

Throughout 2007, Newport Beach public safety staff was kept busy from the Santa Ana River mouth to Crystal Cove State Beach. Here’s a look at the year’s most dramatic highlights.

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Rescues abound

High surf this spring kept rescue workers extremely busy with rough-water rescues.

In April, a couple was swept from the jetty while fishing during a period of high surf. Yi Ni Kwong, 49, of Irvine, and Sean Shungfei Yeh, 53, of Fremont, were fishing in the early morning hours when a large wave knocked them into the water. Yeh’s body was found near Inspiration Point three days later. Kwong’s body was not found.

In June, six divers found a pelvic bone and what appeared to be human flesh 20 feet below the ocean’s surface, but those remains have not been identified.

In March, Newport Beach Lifeguard John Moore rescued seven teenagers swimming along the Balboa Peninsula who got caught in a rip tide.

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Coastal wreckage

Newport Beach Lifeguards and Coast Guard officials spent most of spring and summer collecting bits of marine vessels off the jetties and shoreline of Newport Beach.

A 60-foot cabin cruiser that crashed Aug. 11 on the west jetty at the Newport Harbor entrance was salvaged by a private company and towed down the coast to a private yard where it is was later repaired. The Crescendo, valued at $3 million, sank off the rocks while Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol rescued several passengers on board. Luckily, all six passengers made it safely off the boat.

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Missing body found

A body found just off the coast of Catalina Island was identified as lost sailor William Eugene Ott, whose boat also crashed into the jetty rocks at Newport Harbor in April, officials said. The body was found in the waters just off Avalon, the island’s main town. Authorities were searching for Ott, 61, of Phoenix since his sailing boat crashed into the west jetty at the Wedge.

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Spectacular swims

Newport Beach lifeguards are known for their excellence on the job, and many gleaming stars helped add to this reputation over the last year.

Retired Newport Beach Lifeguard Buddy Belshe was honored after 58 years of hard work. He received an unexpected retirement gift from his employers: A race began in his name, the Buddy Belshe Buoy Swim.

Next year’s race is scheduled for Aug. 20.

Another lifeguard, John Graass, decided to take the plunge and attempt a one-man crossing of the 21-mile channel from Santa Catalina Island to the shores of Palos Verdes.

In August, Graass, 25, a swimmer since his high school years, became the 136th swimmer to cross the chilly open ocean water. He completed the journey in 10 hours and 32 minutes, despite combating hypothermia that set in around the halfway mark.

Graass said he does not plan to revisit the experience any time soon.

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trouble with plankton

The coastal waters wrestled with the dreaded pseudo-nitzschia in the spring, responsible for killing local sea mammals, only to battle the effects of fallen ash from the Santiago Canyon fires in the fall.

The Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach treated more than 40 adult California sea lions since mid-April that were poisoned after eating fish that feed on the plankton. All the sea lions were female, many were pregnant, and at least 35 of them died. Marine biology students at OCC have been documenting trends in both cases that led to first, rising levels of toxic plankton, then the amount of plankton lowering since the blazes broke out Oct. 21 between Santa Barbara and San Diego.

Each semester a number of the classes collect sea water samples from the Los Alamitos Bay in south Long Beach.

The classes gathered samples before the fires, during and after the soot had settled. Student researchers found that plankton levels fell by 80% after the fires.

Instructor Dennis Kelly predicted a faster spread through the food chain due to the heavy amounts of ashy sediment in the post-fire plankton samples.

It could all be cyclical though as OCC professors predicted a “red tide” plankton bloom resulting from the nutrient-rich environment created by the runoff after recent rain storms. The resulting dominant species could be the pseudo-nitzschia.

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Eternally online

Rupert, the beloved black-feathered resident of Newport Harbor, made his way onto the web this year via MySpace.com, the popular networking site.

The website was created by Phoebe Shackeroff, the director of a documentary about Rupert the swan, who was accidentally killed during a police investigation in the harbor. The page features photos and paintings and offers a flock of Rupert trivia.

KELLY STRODL may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at kelly.strodl@latimes.com.