Olympian Aaron Peirsol ‘devastated’ after completing paddle through oil spill

Olympic swimmer Aaron Peirsol spent most of his weekend on Catalina Island helping lead a camp for cancer survivors but heard the troublesome news before departing early Sunday on a paddle to Newport Beach.

A massive oil spill was floating off the coast of Orange County.

The five-time gold medalist, working with the Newport Aquatic Center’s We Are Ocean program, believed he could navigate around the slick to reach the open Newport Beach port but that’s not exactly what happened.

Peirsol, accompanied by a few friends and a guide boat, completed the last few miles of his crossing early Sunday afternoon through the ecological disaster. He serpentined around the most troublesome spots and endured the foul smell to land at L Street.

“It was almost in a bit of defiance,” Peirsol said of the journey. “All of us have this collective love for the ocean, so it was almost like, ‘No, we’re going. We’re going to see this’ kind of thing. … I’m devastated.”

Peirsol, 38, began his trek at 4 a.m. Sunday knowing Newport Beach was open. The Newport Harbor graduate said the group began smelling the oil about 10 miles into their roughly 30-mile trek.

“We’re thinking, ‘Wow, if we’re already smelling it, it must be really bad and I wonder when we’re going to come across it,’” he said.

Peirsol, riding a “Board of Hope” dedicated to those who have died of cancer or are fighting the disease, said he began to encounter oil slicks and tar balls about 4 miles off the coast of Newport Beach.

“We weren’t spending a ton of time in any of it and we were certainly trying to circumnavigate anything we could,” he said. “We were not going to put ourselves into too bad of a situation. If we felt it was really bad, we would have thrown the boards on the boat that was with it and we would just go around it.”

Peirsol and his group arrived at L Street along the Newport Beach peninsula around 2 p.m. He said they were glad they saw the spill up-close but remained steadfast in their concerns for the ocean.

Peirsol, who retired from swimming in 2011, is the former celebrity supporter for Oceana, a non-profit group that aims to protect and restore the oceans.

“It bummed us all out,” he said of the spill. “It’s not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’ kind of thing with the rigs offshore. You have all those container ships that are offshore. There’s kind of a lot going on. Aging rigs offshore, not really probably getting the care that they need. Aging technology, and just the archaic kind of method of doing those things and living the way we do.”

“I think it’s time to move on from that stuff as expediently as we can,” he added. “I, unfortunately, don’t believe it will be the last time (there is an accident).”

Source: Orange County Register