Rip Currents

Gripping a pair of binoculars, Tin Nguyen relentlessly scanned the shoreline Thursday, bracing himself against his worst fear: finding the body of his 17-year-old son, who may have fallen victim to unusually severe rip currents caused by El Nino-powered storms. The teen, Nelson Nguyen, and two friends were swimming near the Huntington Beach Pier on Wednesday afternoon when a strong current pulled him out into the ocean, said Lt. Mike Beuerlein of the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Division.

When school and the sun are both out, a lemming-like urge to bolt for the ocean grips Orange County residents by the hundreds of thousands. Officially, the first day of summer was Friday. But lifeguards say the daily migration to the beaches began long before that--along with their work rescuing floundering bathers.

A 17-year-old Santa Ana Valley High School student drowned Thursday afternoon after a rip current pulled him more than 250 yards from the shore near Newport Pier, authorities said. Two other swimmers who were with him barely managed to swim back to shore, said Randy Scheerer, a battalion chief for the Newport Beach Fire Department. Hours later, another water tragedy occurred when a 6-year-old boy drowned in an apartment complex swimming pool in Anaheim.

Beach conditions during this post-El Nino spring and summer could be more dangerous than usual. The seasonal movement of sand appears to be more extreme, creating deeper inshore holes and stronger rip currents. Sandy-bottomed beaches from Orange County to Malibu have these holes, which are slowly filling in. Also, an excess of urban storm runoff is expected to affect water quality through July. Hole hazard near shore A.

San Diegans can look forward to sunny days after late-night and early-morning low clouds and locally dense fog through the Labor Day weekend. Temperatures will be on a cooling trend but it will still be sunny and warm, the National Weather Service said. A weak upper-level, low-pressure system off the Pacific northwest coast will bring a dry westerly wind over the county through the three-day holiday weekend, said forecaster Wally Cegiel.

Because beachgoing -- a Southern California delight -- can turn so deadly, it's hard to fathom why so many folks who don't know how to swim have plunged so deeply into the summer waters. They're producing unseasonably high numbers of rescues. And there have been six drownings off the Orange County coast this year, already reaching last year's total. Why do romantics launch into surf as the day's light dwindles, without being good swimmers and without a lifeguard present?

Two Ventura beach-goers rescued four people from the Pacific Ocean on Sunday after strong rip currents carried them away from shore. About 2:30 p.m., James Bruggeman, 19, of Saugus was in the water off Surfers Knoll near Ventura Harbor when he and a woman swimming nearby were pulled about 150 feet away from shore by a strong southwest current. But Bruggeman, a regular beach-goer who has taken several lifeguard courses, said he used his skills to get the woman and himself back to shore.

Recent overhead waves from a south swell and a warmer ocean off Orange County's Gold Coast mean only one thing--that summer has arrived! Instead of grabbing your surfboard and running out to the water's edge, Rockin' Fig wanted to put in a word of caution, especially in view of last month's incident involving Tony Luong, a 10-year-old Santa Ana boy, who was swept out to sea by strong waves and current at Newport Beach. The young boy's body was never found, and he is presumed drowned.

The white T-shirt caught lifeguard Arn Van Dyke's eye as he made his last round of the day along the jetties that jut seaward from Newport Beach. "I could see the guy on the rocks and he was getting nailed by the waves," said Van Dyke, 34, an 11-year veteran. By the time Van Dyke reached the man, what he thought was going to be a single rescue became something else entirely.