Last week, Seal Beach Life Guard Chief Joe Bailey made his annual sting ray presentation at the City Council meeting. That routine presentation happened to coincide with an uptick in the numbers of sting ray injuries both in Seal Beach and in San Diego. As a result, Seal Beach, dubbed by some pundits as the Sting Ray Capitol of the World, got a lot of press attention last week. We asked Chief Bailey about beach safety and if the sting ray action was unusual.

With a little chuckle about the press attention, Bailey said “it’s not like it was out of the ordinary. We had small surf and the tides were just about right to make it so we would get a lot of sting ray injuries, so that’s what happened over the last week.”

Sting ray injuries were higher last week – about 6 to 8 per day, verses an average of 3 per day – but that was not indicative of anything other than a lot of people in the water and the right conditions for sting ray injuries.
“When you have more people at the beach and lower surf so the sting rays are actually in closer,” more injuries will happen, Bailey told www.OC180NEWS.com.

With higher surf expected this week, Bailey told us the daily averages for sting ray injuries will probably go down and bring the cumulative numbers back to normal. The sting rays like the warmer water near the river channel at the west end of the beach. “I’d say 85% to 90% are going to come from the west side of the pier down by First street to Fourth Street,” said Bailey. But that doesn’t mean the east side of the beach is without its own issues.

“There are two distinct sides of the beach. There’s the west beach which is flat and it goes out flat, so the waves break out a little further, said Bailey. “On the east side of the pier, it’s a steep beach and so the waves tend to crash right on the sand. Depending on the surf conditions that could be a dangerous spot, so it’s not the best spot for young kids. The waves come up and crash on the sand, they push up and they knock people over, then they suck them back out as the waves rush back down that steep beach.”

So, there are sting rays on the west and dangerous conditions on the east. The safest place depends on the conditions at the time, swimming skills and whether you are wading, serious swimming, surfing, or boogie boarding.

“That’s why we tell people to talk to a life guard, ask a life guard where the best spot is, because each day is a little different,” said Bailey. “It depends on if we have surf, if we don’t have surf, if there’s a sting ray issue, if the tides are right for sting rays, there’s a lot of factors that all come into play, so it’s always day to day. That’s why you should always talk to a life guard when you are at the beach.” Bailey said it also depends on where the crowds are.” We prefer people, particularly with smaller kids, to be in front of the life guards.

Bailey told us they are expecting higher surf this week. “It looks like we have some surf building today {Monday} through Wednesday. The reports are that we are going to have shoulder to head high surf here in Seal Beach.” That means the sting rays will move to deeper water and the surfers will move in. “The sting rays don’t like being in that real turbulent zone, so when there’s good surf, they usually move away from shore,” said Bailey. Lucky for Seal Beach’s surfers.