Crystal Cove 3

Posted on September 9, 2002 in Biomes Photos The Orange

When pResident Bush came to stump for and snub gubenatorial candidate Bill Simon two weeks back, he paid a visit to Dana Point. It was a fit choice for an emblem of the kind of sloppy world he intends to leave us as his legacy. I had the pleasure of seeing Dana Point before it had a breakwater and a harbor. Doheny State Beach (named after the notorious Teapot Dome swindler — the Kenneth Lay of his time) boasted the best waves on the California Coast. This was the place where Richard Henry Dana wrote of the Indians from Mission San Juan Capistrano throwing cured hides down steep sandstone cliffs.

The cliffs are still there along with a replica of the Pilgrim, the tiny Bostonian merchant man that Dana rode around the Cape Horn. The deep waters opening to the sea and the terrific waves are now extinct, however; their replacements are a litter of boat slips, concrete sea walls, ragged stone breakwaters, upscale chain restaurants, a grassy lido, oil slicks from careless owners, and grand expanses of gray parking lots. You can get a sense of peace from watching the boats bob at their slips and a chuckle from ships with names like the Sea-Ducer, but the glorious wildness has vanished. The pleasure of the sea along with the wonderful tidepools that used to draw visitors from Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Inland Empire have been flattened and reshaped to fit a corporate dream where there can be no genuine wildness.

Only the thin strip held by the California State Parks prevents Crystal Cove from suffering the same fate. The City of Newport Beach has the local reputation of wanting everything for itself. It has set itself off against the rest of the county by attempting to close the present Orange County Airport and remove it to the defunct El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. It already makes planes cut their engines as they head south from the runway. It has doctored plans and fixed demonstrations calculated to woo those of us who will live under the proposed flight path from our views that the new airport is not needed and that the present facility suits us fine. Newport Beach fathers and the supervisors they own keep putting the airport to a vote. And every time we do vote, we vote it down.

What they are doing now to Crystal Cove could well be revenge for our intrasingence about the airport. They have annexed and zoned out of existence the last deep stretch of open coastal chaparral in the county. The homes of the rich line the promontories that the state or the Nature Conservancy did not have the money or the foresight to acquire. The sense of the remote that used to bring me down to Crystal Cove on weekends is gone. The only inland portion of the park, rugged El Moro Canyon, lies dog-legged behind yet another development.

Today’s pictures show the “historic district” of Crystal Cove State Park, a cluster of beach shacks built by employees of the Irvine Ranch. In the picture with the girl standing in front of the pond, you can see the new mansions lining the headland like artillery emplacements. Only the tops of the trees prevent you from seeing how selfish developers have rubbed out the contours of the hill; created an unnatural and uncomely defile; and left the ground bare as a prequel to a jarring intaglio of grass.

The picture of the tunnel indicates a bizarre, semi-literate protest in which the guardians of Crystal Cove, the rangers, have been singled out as the bad guys. Crystal Cove remains open to all as long as it is community property. Whoever wrote that bit of grafitti vents at the very men and women who are struggling to keep it where the public can linger, frolic, and bury themselves in the sand if that is their pleasure.

Click on the picture