Sunset Beach and the Red Tide

Steamboat Sunset - June 2021

Sunset Beach is an eclectic little town tucked between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach along Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Southern California. In the early ‘70’s a couple of the big draws were its iconic Water Tower House and World Famous Sam’s Seafood restaurant. Sam’s sported a gigantic neon blue-and-pink swordfish sign looming above the palm tree entrance. That swordfish was visible for miles around, and when my parents and I went to dinner there soon after moving to town I was thrilled. Unfortunately the food didn’t measure up to the sign, so regular meals under the sign of the swordfish were not to be.   

Just down the road from Sam’s sat Captain Jack’s, one of our favorites of all time, and still thriving today. Sitting right on the corner of PCH and Broadway (the road and bridge that led to Sunset Island) Captain Jack’s was known for its World Famous Crab Legs. It had aquariums in the bar full of colorful tropical fish that I liked to watch while we waited to be seated. The bartender always put plenty of maraschino cherries in my Shirley Temple, and the servers were decked out in Hawaiian-style shirts and friendly smiles. Unfortunately, the young busser that tried to remove my grandmother’s plate before she’d finished with the last crab leg still bears the scars from the fork she stuck in his hand.

When I was five, my parents and I moved into a little street-level apartment on Bayview Drive,  Sunset Island, right across the canal from Captain Jack’s. Captain Jack’s was the bus stop for kids on the island - though the restaurant wasn’t open in the morning it sure was fun to clamber around on the log and rope decor in front of the entrance. 

Squeezed between the closely built homes on the island were dark walkways where cats hung out - and where I wouldn’t be caught dead on my own after dark. The tang of salty sea air - on clothes, skin, hair - was a constant as we were only a block from the ocean. Closet corners had to be constantly surveilled, as they tended to sport mold the minute you let down your guard. Our landlords, Marilyn and Jerry Jones, were kind-hearted people and lived directly above us. I used to climb up the stairs to Marilyn’s at cocktail hour. She’d pour me a fancy glass of grape juice and we’d sit talking, she sipping her wine. I don’t remember what we talked about, but she must have found the conversation scintillating as she continued to invite me up. 

We had a small rowboat, and one evening we dressed in our best and rowed over to Captain Jack’s for a fancy crab leg dinner. It was hard to find a spot at the dock between the gleaming white yachts dwarfing our little boat, so we walked over the island bridge after that.

The rowboat came in very handy when exploring with my cousins. We were fairly close in age - the two boys were a little older and their sister was a little younger than me. Together we were an adventuring team. The four of us would row through the canals to our very own Pirate Island. It was just a large concrete seawall and sand with a bunch of tiny shells, but we dug for the treasure we knew was buried there every time we went. Turns out the treasure was in the developing - that island is now known as Trinidad Island, where homes currently sell for up to $6 million.

My dad, who’d been a lifeguard since his teens and still worked the beach towers in the summer, decided to teach me to swim one day. We jumped in, and after several minutes of wailing, whining and a near strangulation, he pried my arms from around his neck and enrolled me in swim lessons at the bay just down the canal from us. It was a small bay, perfect for kids and beginner swimmers. I can still feel the mucky bay floor squelching between my toes as I walked out to deeper water. 

Being in the canal was fun once I could swim, and I loved to eye the gems at our dock’s waterline. There were the purplish-black shells of the mussels who’d attached there, and a flourishing garden of undulating sea lettuce. Although I was never brave enough to eat any of that, it seemed like a magical feast to my young self. 

Life changed for a few weeks the day the red tide came to town. Red tides occur when there is an abundance, or bloom, of a particular phytoplankton called dinoflagellates. With normal numbers we wouldn’t notice them, but because there are so many in the bloom, their color is visible and the ocean water appears red or even reddish brown. Red tides occur all over the world. These days they occur more frequently, most likely related to climate change, and more research is needed to understand the exact mechanisms driving the frequency. 

I remember my dad explaining the red tide to me as we stood on the dock looking at the weird color of the canal water. Some red tides can be toxic but typically the ones caused by dinoflagellates are not. Still, we didn’t really want to spend time in the water because that red color was so strange. 

As the days went by the bloom intensified, maxing out the available oxygen. That’s when things started to die. In our little canal, we could see the mussels, shells wide open, the inner meat hanging in dried black strips. Lifeless fish floated by. Even the vibrant sea lettuce succumbed, sliming the dock in an oozing sickly green. A foul stench permeated the air: the smell of fish, vegetation and other sea life gone bad. The smell of death. My mom has a visceral reaction to the putrid stink to this day, it made that much of an impression on her.

Eventually, as my dad explained, over the next few weeks the tidal currents would begin to move out the dead and bring back new life. Thank goodness. 

But the red tide wasn’t all bad. The dinoflagellates use something called bioluminescence to avoid predators. We can see this at night: when the water is agitated, by waves breaking or a dolphin swimming, it glows an electric blue. Here’s a Scripps article about red tides and bioluminescence, with photos and videos of the phenomenon.

Though my research turned up descriptions of bioluminescence as blue, my recollection of the bioluminescence I viewed in ‘74 is different. I remember being on the dock one night in the initial days of the red tide. My dad pointed at some small waves lapping at the dock and I caught a glimpse of bright green effervescence that reminded me of the eerie glow of my glow-in-the-dark yo-yo. Then my dad dove in! As he swam across the canal, the water all around him, agitated by his swimming, glowed lime green and he looked like a radioactive Aquaman. Now, if that didn’t make the red tide worth it, I don’t know what would’ve.

We moved away from Sunset Beach in 1975. Captain Jack’s is still a place we’ll go to for a great meal when we’re visiting. Even Charlotte has eaten crab legs there. It is fun to walk around the island after dinner. Of course Bayview Drive has changed. And yet, squinting my eyes down the canal, I can almost see that little rowboat tied at the dock.


Link for more on Sunset Beach: history and individual homes on the walking tour.