Our drought may be over.
SURF:
And I’m not talking about Carlsbad’s desalination plant
either. I’m talking about our crummy surf! Been pretty dismal around here but
it looks like things are starting to shape up. 
FORECAST:
WEATHER:
BEST BET:
Next Thursday with solid SW swell. I can finally breathe
again.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
A stretch of water off Corona del Mar State Beach will be
used to test sonar buoys that could help quickly alert lifeguards to sharks
lurking near the coast, officials announced last week. In a news conference at
Inspiration Point, Newport Beach Mayor Kevin Muldoon, U.S. Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) and others discussed installing six of the special
buoys by Memorial Day in a roughly 1,000-yard stretch of water between the
offshore rocks near Poppy and Ocean avenues and the jetty at the mouth of
Newport Harbor.
The devices, designed by Australia-based Shark Mitigation
Systems, are called Clever Buoys. Ian Cairns, a representative of SMS, said the
buoys also use sonar transducers, which will be on the ocean floor. A
transducer is an electronic device that converts energy from one form to
another. Together, the buoys and transducers can find nearby marine animals
and, based on the swimming patterns, detect whether an animal is a shark or
dolphin. Cairns said the buoys will notify lifeguards seconds after a sighting,
giving them ample time to investigate.
Rob Williams, Newport Beach’s chief lifeguard, said his
teams can use boats or drones to respond to the alerts and, depending on the
size or behavior of a shark, quickly issue warnings or beach closures. “We’re
very excited about it as a city and a lifeguard division,” Williams said. Final
funding for the buoys is still being secured, as are various permits.
Rohrabacher, a senior member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, said
he will be looking for federal funding to help. He said city, county, state or
private money also could go into the effort.
Rohrabacher added that the buoy alerts to lifeguards could
one day also be available to the public on a phone app. Rohrabacher called
sharks off the Southern California coast an “expanding threat” that he’s
experienced while surfing. He joked that he has both local experience with the
predators and “the sharks back in Washington.”
Officials noted that Corona del Mar State Beach, known as
Big Corona, was the spot where swimmer Maria Korcsmaros was bitten last year by
a shark, possibly a great white, about 150 yards offshore. She survived the
attack. Later that year, Newport Beach became the first city in Orange County to
have a dedicated shark page on its website. The city also installed acoustic
receivers at the Newport Pier, Balboa Pier and off Corona del Mar to gather
information for the site.
Pretty crazy to think that in the future that if you want to
go surfing, you may have to check the swell buoys, tides, weather, and now a shark
app. I don’t know if I can keep track of all that.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Worth My Weight In GoldJimmy Crack Corn And I Don’t Care
2020 USA Olympic Surf Team: Slater, Florence, Moore, Glenn
