Activist survives infested waters

Tom Jones had been warned. As he paddled down the Northern California coast to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the ocean, several surfers alerted him about increased shark and whale activity in the Lost Coast.

But the winds had died and the weary Jones decided to take a shortcut through the deeper shark- and whale-infested waters near Shelter Cove.

The surfers were right. He spied a whale stalking him. He watched anxiously as it gained on him, never deviating from its course straight toward him. Then, just as it came right up to his board, the whale apparently decided the Huntington Beach man wouldn’t make for much of a meal.

“I was turned completely backward on my board, thinking I was going to jam my paddle into his eye when he went for me,” he said. “He was probably about 17 feet long and the width of a small car. But then he just bent in half and took a left turn to shore; he didn’t want me.”

The extreme athlete and motivational speaker has faced a lot of challenges in his life, but this trip by paddleboard down the entire state from Aug. 7 to Nov. 9 is an experience he says he will never forget. He did it to raise awareness of the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean, and he calls that goal a huge success. But he mostly talks about surviving shark-infested waters, 70 mph winds, and killer whales to do something no one has ever done, with only a year-and-a-half of surfing experience. It got so bad that some of his support crew quit just days after he started.

“It was hard every single day,” he said. “Many people walked off the job.”

There was a major payoff for Jones, who performs feats of endurance to raise awareness of issues, when he finally arrived at the Mexican border two weeks ago — crowds of spectators and media from both countries gathered to watch him paddle to shore in triumph. He documented the whole thing on his website, www.californiapaddle.com.

The warm welcome was definitely something Southern Californians had over Northern Californians, he said.

“By the time I got to Point Concepcion and Zuma Beach, people started paddling out beyond the surf line to give me a pat on the back,” he said.

Jones intends to train for what he calls “Endurance Island,” a kind of extreme triathlon involving paddleboarding, running and biking all around a Hawaiian island.

Jones says environmental consciousness has brought people to help him out.

“Everybody’s aware of [plastic pollution],” he said. “They just need to be aware of the fact it’s a real environmental issue and catastrophe with an impact on the human race.”