Summer people, some are not

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

I know this is blasphemy. To say that I hate summer when it’s in the

middle of the U.S. Open of Surfing is going to raise some eyebrows.

But it’s true. I can’t stand hot weather, especially if it’s muggy.

Some people are heat sensitive and some aren’t. I’m one of those

sensitive types who suffers in even the mildest of heat waves, like

the one we had a couple of weeks ago during the tropical depression

that blew up from Mexico. Normally we expect heat and humidity during

August, particularly the third week of August. But not in mid-July.

It doesn’t bode well for the upcoming weeks to have started our

monsoon season so soon.

Vic is so tolerant of the heat that he leads birding field trips

to the Salton Sea every summer. He’s leading one on Aug. 9 and 10. I

think he’s nuts. Temperatures at the Salton Sea soar to 120 degrees

and above in the summer. It’s humid there too. And it stinks from all

the dead, rotting fish that wash up on the shore during the heat

waves. No thanks. I’ll take the mild heat in Huntington Beach any day

over the weather in all the rest of the country.

Apparently most of the three million people in Orange County and

the 9.5 million in Los Angeles County agree with me, because they all

seem to come here to the beach to enjoy our good summer weather.

Let’s face it. With our relatively cool ocean breezes, we’ve got it

better than La Habra or Pasadena when it comes to weather.

And that’s what I was going to write about. I had planned to do a

column about how awful it is Downtown with all of our summer

visitors. You know -- the traffic, the parking, the crowds and maybe

even the heat. So to gather some background material, Vic and I went

Downtown Saturday to experience the mad crush of the crowd, the

endless circling for a parking spot, the long wait for a table to

eat. Ha.

The city’s parking structure had plenty of open spaces. Turned

out we barely had time to dash to Jack’s Surfboard to buy a U.S. Open

of Surfing T-shirt before our name was called at the Sugar Shack.

After a wonderful breakfast, we strolled down the pier where there

was plenty of room at the railing to watch the kids competing in the

surfing contest. Down by Ruby’s Diner, we joined a small crowd of

onlookers who had stopped to gawk at a 2-foot-long shovelnose

guitarfish that had been hauled up by a fisherman from Los Angeles.

He specialized in catching sharks and guitarfish and even had a photo

album with him of the many leopard sharks and guitarfish that he had

caught off our pier.

The guitarfish is just about the ugliest fish you could imagine.

It’s shaped like a Fender electric guitar. Well, sort of. The front

end looks like a stingray with a triangular head and the back end

looks like a shark. It’s a relative of skates and rays.

Guitarfish live on the bottom of the ocean, lying buried under the

sand like halibut. Only the eyes stick out. When some unsuspecting

prey comes along, the guitarfish lunges after it, gulping down

hapless crabs, worms or flatfish. Guitarfish eat clams as well.

As far as guitarfish go, the one we saw Saturday was a small

specimen. We’ve seen guitarfish at the Bolsa Chica that have

approached the 5-foot maximum size. Although the one on the pier was

no prize winner, it was a keeper. We’ve heard that they’re good to

eat, but have never tried one. In the past, commercial fishermen

would discard any that they caught, but with the ocean becoming

depleted of more desirable fish, they’re now keeping them. Someday

maybe we’ll see guitarfish for sale in the market or offered in a

restaurant. Just don’t look at a whole one before you eat it. They

have a patent on ugly.

The sight of the guitarfish, even a dead one, was an unexpected

pleasure. We don’t get to see too many of them. The weather on the

pier Saturday was breezy, but pleasant, as usual. My plan to write a

negative column on summer in Surf City was totally thwarted. Once

again, I’ll comment on how lucky we are to live here in paradise, a

place most people can only visit.

I still don’t like the heat. But while denizens of Riverside

swelter with triple digit temperatures and choke with smog, we enjoy

summer temperatures that barely breach the 80 degree mark. This is as

good as it gets. And it’s plenty good enough.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].