Lifeguards locked up the gates to Ocean Beach Pier Saturday morning due to high surf and rising tides, the third closure for the pier this week.
On Monday, high tide popped out a few nails on the pier, forcing a full day closure. On Friday night, a strong winter storm led lifeguards to rope off access to the pier once more.
On Saturday, lifeguards said they weren’t keeping people out of the water or off the beach, but did rope off the steps where water washed up near the pier.
If only we all watched life thru the lens of a kid, “oohing” and “awing” at waves crashing in the Pacific Ocean like 9-year-old Torin and Eva Zeis.
“Those are huge!” the Zeis siblings proclaimed. “They’re really big. There’s even some crashing right over there [on the sidewalk].”
Lifeguards said they closed off the OB Pier so the waves wouldn’t throw people off it. Therefore, a crowd gathered below on the boardwalk.
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For some, including Dereck, a man visiting from Miami, it was a whole new experience.
“Yeah, this is cold for me,” he told NBC 7. “I live in Miami, so we’re about 30 degrees colder than I’m used to.”
Meanwhile, James Seggie snapped photos of the high surf through his professional camera.
“A while ago, there were some [waves] that actually broke on the pier and the water running out, like a waterfall after the wave leaves. This is a photographer’s dream. It’s pretty nice out here this morning, Seggie said.
In a turn of events, Dereck felt like a kid again and jumped into the water.
“You only live once. I don’t know how deep I will go; maybe waist deep. We will see how far I make it,” he said.
The water pushed him back to land, where Torin and Eva watched.
“I haven’t seen it that big, crashing over the pier,” the Zeis siblings said.
High tide was at 8:53 a.m. Saturday, with waves at 6.6 feet high.
