Yippee Kayak!

 

Surfrider Volunteers Clean Huntington Harbour

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

The Surfrider Foundation's North Orange County chapter has a fun – and effective! – way to clean the trash and debris out of SoCal's Huntington Harbour. Kayaks!

 

 

On the first Sunday of each month volunteers show up early in the morning at Huntington Harbor Boat Rentals (16722 Pacific Coast Highway) and paddle out in kayaks to gather the trash that accumulates in the harbour and along its channels.

 

 

The cleanup program was started twelve years ago by Surfrider's Harbour Cleanup Chair Shane Coons, who came up with the idea of using kayaks and asked the boat rental company if it would lend the chapter some of its kayaks. 

 

 

Coons says the program brings members of the community together and gives them a hands-on opportunity to stop pollution at the source, getting the trash before it drifts out into the ocean. In 2025 more than 250 volunteers collected 1,941 lbs. of trash. The chapter is headed toward another good cleanup year in 2026.  

 

  

On a recent Sunday SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti could feel the excitement as the volunteers loaded up the waiting kayaks and got ready to paddle out.

 

 

With Chapter Chair Richard Busch helping to launch the kayaks...

 

and Coons making sure everyone was situated, it only took a few minutes before the flotilla of kayaks was floating up the channel.

 

 

Cleanup bags onboard and paddles in hand, the kayakers were on a mission - to keep SoCal's ocean and beaches free from trash. Yippee Ki-Yay! Yippee Kayak!

 

  

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Bravo to Sally Field!

 

Remarkably Bright Career and Emmy Award

 

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Two-time Academy Award winner Sally Field added another award to her long list of achievements with the 2026 Emmy Award in the Lead TV Movie Actress category for her tour de force performance in the Netflix film Remarkably Bright Creatures, acting alongside a giant Pacific octopus.

The film, based on the best-selling novel by Shelby Van Pelt, depicts Field's character as a heart-broken widow still mourning the loss of her teenage son who died in a boating accident in Puget Sound over 30 years ago. Working on the night shift as a cleaner in an aquarium, she develops an unlikely friendship with Marcellus, the wise octopus who is in captivity there, and comes to learn the truth about her son's death.

 

Field's remarkable career has played out in front of the world from her early roles as TV's Gidget and The Flying Nun through Academy Award wins as a union leader in Norma Rae and widowed farmer in Places in the Heart to many other memorable roles. 

A skilled comedian and dramatic actress, Field has shown that she is a performer to be contended with and can take any role and make it her own, earning a place alongside renowned actresses like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. With this Emmy, Field made history as the oldest actress to win in her category, bringing Van Pelt's book to life with its message of hope.  

 

SurfWriter Girls salute Sally Field for all the years of entertainment she has provided audiences and for her illustrious and remarkably bright career.

   

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

The Dog Stars Film Shines Bright

 

Peter Heller Book Made into Movie Thriller

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Acclaimed author and outdoorsman Peter Heller's end-of-the-world novel The Dog Stars is getting a new incarnation with blockbuster director Ridley Scott's (Alien, Bladerunner, Gladiator) new film about a post-apocalyptic world.

 

 

Published in 2012 - eight years before Covid-19 entered the vocabulary and became part of everyone's lives - Heller's book describes the aftermath of a global flu pandemic that wipes out most of mankind. 

Like Heller's other books, including Celine, The Painter and The River, The Dog Stars finds a way to counter horror with humanity and hope. In this case, the world's future may hang on the slender thread of a mechanic/airplane pilot named Hig, his dog Jasper, and misanthropic fellow survivor Bangley. 

 

 

SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti are happy that Heller's book will reach a greater audience through the film. We have been fans of his ever since his surfing memoir Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave came out. 

 

 

In Kook, Heller tells how, after several false starts trying to surf, he took lessons from famed SoCal surf instructor Michael Pless, "The Saint of Seal Beach" (here with SurfWriter Girls), and ended up learning about a lot more than surfing. Pless, who puts soul into surfing, shows Heller that surfing isn't just a sport, but a way of life, becoming one with the ocean and nature.

 

Sunny met Heller when Pless invited SurfWriter Girls to a book talk for Kook.

 

 

The next day Sunny was getting her own surfing lesson from Pless...and Heller was at the shoreline cheering her on and taking photos. 

 

 

Novelist Heller, a journalist, explorer, and adventure writer for National Geographic, is perfect to write about the losses from a pandemic because he has lived life boldly and knows how deep the losses will be. 

With Peter Heller (screenwriters Christopher Wilkinson and Mark L. Smith) and Ridley Scott onboard together, The Dog Stars film, like the constellation it's named for, has the potential to light up the night, bringing warmth and meaning to its viewers.  

 

 SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.