Solid Gold Summer Sunsets and What Lies Beneath

Shark attacks are the very least of a surfers worries down in Southern California. Here is the reality of Surfing, body surfing and swimming in the Southern California beach waters when it rains and for 72 hours after the rains stop.

It is the very present threat of stepping upon a stingray that is far more likely than a shark attack’, when stepped upon they whip that tail upward and drive that 15 inch long venomous spear like barb through the calf muscles, the venom causes severe muscle cramping and severe pain. We had to carry one guy along with the stingray to shore’ they had to kill the ray and pull the barb out as it speared all the way through’ he was in as much agony from the venom as if he had been stung by jelly fish, and was taken off to the hospital. Rare, but as with Shark bites it’s the one attack that ruins your day, and to add when speared by a stingray’ you’re going to bleed a lot, and that one thing you do now want to do in ocean waters is bleed’ because that does attract sharks’ sharks of varying species. It was the say sea creature that suddenly turned against the Late Steve Erwin when it pierced his chest and heart, but stepping on a stingray although more common than shark attacks are not something which happens often.

But the real threat to Southern California Surfers and the very reason that make me retire from the sport of Surfing was the Toxic Sewage Spills and heavy metals runoff which was occurring with increasing events after rainstorms. My Father had a lot of years employed for the city, he flat out warned me to stay away from the beaches for a week after every rain storm and or Sewage overflow. The Post rain surf’ is very contaminated’ everyone stays away from the beaches when it rains, because those coastal waters are extremely contaminated, from Ventura all the way down to San Diego. You’re risking your life going into the water for up to 72 hours after it rains down there. It’s nothing to take lightly or to assume it will be ok’ it’s Russian roulette in entering the water and wearing a wet suit does not keep you from ingesting the contaminated waters, and that’s by far an understatement.

So. Cali Beaches when it rains’ are usually closed due to gross contaminated diseased water’ as it is a serious health threat of contacting Cryptosporidiosis or other parasites thriving in human waste polluted waters which regularly contaminate southern Cali beaches when it rains, than being bit by sharks.
That’s the reason the California State steps in and shuts down miles and miles of coastal beaches when there are Sewage overflows and or

Stay out of the water for 72 hours after rain. That is the most critical times as the beach waters are at their most contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, a petroleum products mostly motor oils, toxic Brake dust and fuels from thousands of cars washing off the freeways and roads down into the concrete river channels and spewing out into the ocean and getting washed through wave action up and down the coastline. L.A. has concrete river canals so there is no absorption of all those toxins. It’s a given that surfers down there know to stay out of the water for 72 hours during and after it rains in the L.A. Basin.

They call it the seven Surf illnesses’ down there. You can get hepatitis – A, MRSA’, Meningitis, Vibrio Vulnificus, Leptospirosis, Encepphalitis, and other nasty diseases and respiratory illnesses.

Here in Oregon our Ocean beaches here of almost 400 miles of coastline are treacherous’ a lot of people die in the rough seas’ some killed by sneaker wave that crash in and flood way up upon shore’ usually rolling huge tree logs over the beach goers and children playing near them, sneaker waves washing people out to see. And the rip currents combined with chilled cold waters drowns a lot of people, or some people fall off the sea cliffs. But in Southern California’ it’s the diseases in the polluted waters during and after rain storms, that will get you ill.

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