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Whew 1!

Whew 2!!

Whew 3!!!

and finally, after almost 4 days of BA Bummage, I think I was able to get over the events of last Sunday afternoon and Monday morning -

Sunday afternoon a young girl was killed in an auto accident in Bird Rock -

The car she was driving went off the cliff by South Bird -

I hadn't even heard anything about the accident until I talked to Buzzy on Monday morning - June 7th.

Buzzy's daughter was in the car, with a couple of other friends, but they were able to jump out of the car before it went off the cliff, killing the 16 year old driver - tragic - but at least it wasn't Buzz's kid!

Not a great start for Monday morning, but the surf was pumping - and lottsa things were happening - surf wise anyway - in the early morning at The Shores -

• South wind
• -0 .9 ft low tide at 8:05 am
• Northwest, short interval wind swell
• Wave faces easily 6 - 8 feet
• Riptides all along the beach

Here's a graph showing wave height from the 8th, and the waves were much smaller on the 8th than they were on the 7th:

Wave Heights

Anyway, as I was putting all my surf crapola on, a mom driven SUV parked next to me - 5 young girls jumped out, all wearing the obligatory Roxy Rash Guards - the girls were probably 9 years old up to maybe 12 or 13.

The girls grabbed surfboards out of the back of the SUV and charged The Shores - I tried to warn them about the stingrays, but what do I know?

I figgered they'd just play at the water's edge, and hopefully, they would be stingray free - and even though the mom sat down, reading material in hand, next to the nearest fire ring, it didn't look too dangerous for the girls or for the mom.

But - they all walked out to about waist deep water, and were promptly swept from around in front of Inside Wave Dave's truck all the way to the [non-manned] lifeguard tower. I was watching this as I walked toward the same Shores paddle out spot I've used for almost 50 years - right in front of the lifeguard tower.

As soon as I hit the water's edge, all five of the girls were caught in a world class rip, and all were pulled out into the line-up.

A rip-tided set of about 4 waves stood up - and broke - right on top of the girls.

The three older girls were able to hold on to their boards and they got washed right in, however, the two younger girls were pulled out past the line-up, and the youngest girl's leash had come off - she was barely able to tread water in the rip

I don't know who reads this stuff I write - but if you've never surfed La Jolla Shores at a negative tide, with a south wind, and a north wind swell pounding, with intervals of about 4 - 5 seconds - you got no clue about how treacherous the conditions can be.

Even experienced surfers and swimmers have a difficult time in The Shores' rips - I've lost count of the number of people I've pulled in from the rips over the years - surfers, swimmers, divers, etc...

Whew - I'm boring myself with this exercise!

Back to the event - I got the 2 girls in - no big deal - but the upsetting thing to me - was the mom's reaction -

I must have been a way over-protective parent, but at least all three of my sons made it into adulthood - "very successfully at that," sez proud parent  BA!

The mom was so clueless about what the kids were doing, and how close her youngest kid came to drowning that I got so angry with her that I couldn't even give her my customary "stupid parent" lecture.

Anyway - the kids and the mom all survived:   Girls 1   Girls 2

AND

it only took me 3 1/2 days to get past my anger at the mom.

Later,

BA