The Sports Info Business

For the last day or two, the Southern California Coastline has been pounded by monster waves.  The swells were courtesy of a storm that began in the South Pacific near Tahiti.  If you do not live in the area or know the California Coast only from the days of TV like Bay Watch, you might think the beaches here have a water temperature of 85 degrees and famous Hollywood folks are regularly seen walking along the shore.

Uh, no.

But, it didn’t stop a lot of people from watching local surfers, boogie boarders and body surfers that braved the 60 degree water temperature along at a few Orange County, beaches.

The storm, produced 15 to 20 foot waves along the shore of “The Wedge” at the world famous surfing hot spot in Newport Beach.  The monster waves were also quite dangerous and a body surfer lost his life when he was thrown up against the rocks at the Wedge Friday afternoon.  When I was in college, I spent a year living in Newport Beach and two of my three roommates were surfers.  But even after their prodding I never got on a surfboard.  I was smart enough to know my limits.

The unusually high waves, coincidentally, comes at the same time where professional surfers can test their own limits at the 2009 Hurley U.S. Open Surfing Championships being held up the road in Huntington Beach.

The Sunday surfing Schedule gets started at 8:00 a.m.