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Friday, September 19, 2014

shame on state parks lifeguard and/or trestles hurley staff

see slideshow at 
http://hurley-pro-trestles-2013.blogspot.com/2014/09/hall-of-shame-trestles-hurley-2014.html

9/16/14
and/or OC (State parks) lifeguard.
I took a swim north of the competition area today (9/16/14) & suddenly a lifeguard with his little red flotation device came swimming out to me acting as if I was in distress. I calmly told him "I'm fine" & "I don't need to be rescued." And he replied, "You appear to be a weak swimmer, there's a riptide..."blah blah blah. In fact, what this was all about is probably somebody with binoculars (they had been sternly admonishing surfers on the other side to stay out of the competition area all morning, even threatening law enforcement if they didn't comply) in the Hurley booth saw me drifting a little south towards the competition area & instead of them kindly asking me to swim a little further "upstream" they decided to use the pretense of a rescue & had to add insult to injury by calling me a "weak swimmer." I might add that I swim out to an offshore buoy (several hundred yards) & back on a periodic basis at Corona del Mar. I do have a bit of a permanent shoulder injury that causes me to switch from freestyle to sidestroke on a periodic basis & maybe makes my freestyle form appear a bit unorthodox but nonetheless, since when did lifeguards make "rescues" based on swimmer's style rather than actual need? I sensed the lifeguard was acting on orders from somebody else,...he virtually pleaded for me to come to shore, which was what I was in the process of doing anyways, but I was also cooling off & enjoying just floating a bit. It really takes some of the enjoyment away from the beach experience when lifeguards become too nervous. It makes everybody nervous, often unnecessarily so. You don't need to be a powerful swimmer most of the time to swim in the ocean. If you think you can defeat the waves by being stronger than them, you will lose. More important is finesse & patience & ability to stay afloat. Occasionally, it helps to use brute strength to power towards the beach, but most people know, it’s not a matter of strength that will help you escape a riptide, but temporarily going with the flow.Anyways, there was not much of a riptide at the moment, if at all. I sensed this was "political" & I was being used as a pawn,so that others would see the drama & think it was dangerous or wrong to swim there. Funny thing is, it didn't work. People saw me enjoying the water & as I exited suddenly there were at least 20 others splashing in

 the cool water on the 100 degree day.