OCBP oversteps its bounds

You see that little " + " next to the "quote" button? Click on a few of those before you quote and then you won't have 2342 multiple posts.

 

Yeah, get over it. Lifeguards suck sometimes when it comes to that crap, but fight it if they were wrong.

 

Hey

Hey man,
I'm not gonna lie, I'm the third lifeguard who swam up to you and asked you to come talk to the cops. I was sitting 47th watching this whole thing go down. Sgt. Fisher was authoritative with you bc you were ignoring the surf beach facilitators who were whistling at you for like 30 minutes (The dudes in Yellow). We sent our off duty guard friend to politely ask you to move from the surf beach, and he told you that the lifeguards were trying to get you to move.
Everytime we swim out, we don't always think to identify ourselves as guards. Personally, I figure the whistle around my neck sorta gives it away.
I grew up here in OC (year round), and have been with the BP for 5 years. I feel like most people know the way the surfing beaches work. It's the 3 blocks in all of OC where surfers get preference.

~c2

 

Even though I understand your point of view regarding the guards additude, drifting 4 blocks is a little rediculous. My biggest pet peeve is seeing someone down the beach on a day with drift getting closer and closer as I get a good workout keeping my original position for 3 hours. Typically they drift closer until they finally stop. Where do they usually stop? Right up peak from me and choose that as the position to hold after a multiblock drift. Then they try giving you the stink eye as you paddle around them to take the set wave, human nature is very strange.

Why after 4 blocks of freedom would you even let yourself drift up on a group of ten surfers and not get out and run back up the beach to the open water? Is it just me who tries to give everyone space and hopes they will give me the same?

 

Must have been an ego trip since they had the life guard comp that day down the beach. I watched some tools paddle out on surf boards at 36th street and nothing happened to them except a few faces plants followed by a whistle to get out.

I think they should have identified themselves but you must also be aware of what surrounds you.

 

so i hate most lifeguards as much as the next just some beach guidos tan work out and hit on underage girls.. but for real dude you were definately at fault.. instead of trying to act all agro yourself and making a stand that because they were rude so your going to stay in the surfing beach is just stupid.. when they ask you to move just move, it sucks we have surfing beaches but it keeps the place safer and they had the right to be mad you were that ignorant to just chill in the surf area without a surfboard. it pisses me off too when bbers can have the whole beach then they block up one small block surfers get and then sometimes others follow your lead

 

In NWW is differnt you are allowed to sponge at the surfing beach as long as you wear fins when you paddle out at the surfing beach . If you have no fins and you board is under a certain lenght you can sponge where ever you please.

I never had any isssue with BP in my area alot of them know who and I am and let me get away with minor stuff like no leash or if it not super crowded and I got past the flag on a good wave they let is slide

 

That makes no sense. You can sponge where you want as long as you don't have fins? I could see not letting people go out far if they don't have fins on, but that doesn't make any sense. Sponges don't bother anyone as far as danger goes. Surfboards are dangerous and I can't imagine why you'd want to be where the surfers are in the first place. Almost got hit a surfer the other day. The surfers area are crowded enough. Let them be alone. Go to the rest of beach and have a blast with no crowds of dangerous flying surfboards, unless of course it's a point break and that's where the shoulder of the wave is and it's no good elsewhere, but I think your talking about a sand break, right? I'm not familiar with the area.

 

I dont know I dont make the rules thats just how they do it . I know if you are not in the surfing beach and you go out far they do blow the whisle at you to come back in closer

 

With all due respect, you were wrong. The law existed and you knew about it. Your statement of the zones changing all the time is further evidence of your level of understanding. The bottom line is you chose to go out in the water without knowing that day's designated areas, as well as failed to maintain situational awareneness.

Disputing this, based the reasons you provided, is the equivelent of fighting a traffic ticket for running a newly emplaced red light because you were daydreaming and the policemen wasn't nice. There's a way to dispute laws we feel are unrealistic. Breaking them and expecting leaniency because the enforcing authority wasn't polite is not that way.

That being said, however, I do think it's a ridiculous fine and I hope you don't have to pay it. Personally, I'd tell the judge I lost situational awareness because of the zone change and leave all of the conflict with authority stuff out of it. IMHO, bringing that stuff up may leave the impression that you are nothing more than a whiner that has a problem with authority. That impression usually provides negative results.

But hey...do whatever. Post the results, though. I'm interested in how it turns out.

 

it took the lifeguards to get you out?.. if i saw a sponger further adding to the crowd of a surfing beach i would help the lifeguards for once.. they are dumb but atleast give surfers a little room you have 123 other streets you can get sponge nasty at

 

The current must have been ripping pretty hard down the beach. I don't know about you guys, but I generally am aware that I am floating into oblivion. Particularly if I were to go four blocks. Have fun being $50 poorer.

 

what do you mean i'm off topic...?

for good or ill, language is what the users make of it, and "gay" is transforming into "uncool" and "lame" through common usage. imagine how "happy" people from the 30's and 40's felt by the late 60's and early 70's....it's like trying to stop the tide, but i do appreciate those who try to keep the traditional alive.

 

hahahahahahaha kook.

 

So, now that the third guard explained himself, it sounds like they had valid reason to confront you, but the term "authoritative" or threatening is waaaaay out of line for a Sergant to be doing. Correct me if I am wrong, but the lifeguards have ZERO actual juristiction over humans in the water. If people do not listen to them, don't they have to call the actual police, to come down to the beach, wait for the guy to get out, then ticket or arrest him. If ANY guard, Sergant or not came up and "threatened" me, or even thought about touching me, I would take you to court right away.

Bottom line is that we "SHOULD" listen to you so we don't get fined, but if we dont, you can't just come paddle out and grab us. Then you will get sued, because you are breaking the law... So an "authorititive threats" from a guard were empty and weak. They can write you a fine, but they can't touch you. Even in the water.

I mean technically, if those guys injure someone during a water rescue they can get sued. So, im not hating on the Guard or BP. They are a much needed organization for summers in the mid atlantic, but please please please gentlemen, don't get yourself confused with the OC PD or the swat team. You are a "LIFEGAURD". You really have no business be agro with ANYONE. It is afterall, YOUR JOB... You can'y get angry at people all summer. As BP, you know that the masses are ignorant and blind. So, just deal with it. its your job.

Im not saying that the guy who paddled out and asked him to come talk to the cops was wrong at all. You my friend were doing your job. But the agro guy that tried to threaten him physically is a weak clown, who in reality can't touch anyone. So, if you want to be a tough guy, be a cop, or a bouncer. lifeguards are neither of the two.

 

i am sending you kiss!!!!

Your a moron. Go to court and fight what? These guards save hundreds of lives every day in OC. Your lucky if the judge doesn't double your fine and b!t3H slap the H3ll out of you after you say, "I've been surfing this beach in the summer for 14 years and I'm 18 and they didn't idenitify them selves and I didn't know what was going on and I drifted from north to south on a south swell???"

Judges remark, "What are you stupid and blind?" After 14 years, it should be easy to identify 3 things. 1. A lifeguard. 2. A surf beach (Big red stands.) 3. That you should be working instead of boogie boarding to pay off your $50 fine!

 

OB you took the words right out of my mouth,too funny,well put.

 

Yeah they do the same thing at one of the beaks I go to. It's so annoying, but nothing I can do. If there's any type of swell at all,(Even waist high) they put in place knee deep restriction. Then they start blowing the whistle at you if you go out to where the waves are breaking. Then you have to go to an area where everyone(surfer's/swimmers/bbder's) are allowed at a different beach a little walk down the beach. The waves are actually better at this spot at least, but that's how I almost got hit by a surfer. Everyone is packed in tight. I figure the lifeguards could use some common sense and see if the bodyboarder knows what he's doing and then blow the whistle at some little kid for his own safety, but let a grown adult who knows how to duckdive a wave and has fins go farther out. The other break I go to actually does this so that's good at least.