Eyes on San Clemente Island Tonight

[HubbaHubbaLife]

Any of our south county coastal guys notice what looks like a huge fire out on the island this evening? I got home at 9pm and looked out towards Clemente and it looked totally enflamed.... in 30 years I've never seen that.... we've got 30-50 knt Santa Anas blowing... I Googles but no news.... did find history of it occurring in past out there. 3 hours later its knocked down but not out....What say you?

 

[Mandelon]

What is out there? Goats? Military?

 

[lbhsbz]

What is out there? Goats? Military?

Military

 

[Ziggy]

What is out there? Goats? Military?

Definitely our Military. It did or does get live munition rounds from Pendleton.

 

[Rondog4405]

I rolled out of there around 3:00 yesterday. They were doing some serious mortar dropping all day.

 

[HBCraig]

Military

Fire big rounds out there

Doing some ordinance training

 

[Danger Dave]

Look at the North end of the island past the runway. Big training facility for the SEAL teams.

 

[toto]

Pretty cool Island - I have been out there several times for AT&T and went all over the place. The East Side is pretty desolate and takes a lot of hits from Ships way off shore that you can't bearly see - Wast end is cool with the Mini Saudi town for the Seal Training.

 

[monkeyswrench]

Pretty cool Island - I have been out there several times for AT&T and went all over the place. The East Side is pretty desolate and takes a lot of hits from Ships way off shore that you can't bearly see - Wast end is cool with the Mini Saudi town for the Seal Training.

What is out there? Goats? Military?

Now I understand....military goats for the middle east training.

 

[HubbaHubbaLife]

A

I rolled out of there around 3:00 yesterday. They were doing some serious mortar dropping all day.

Ah Ha.... there we are! That was something to see.

 

[Mark G]

Any of our south county coastal guys notice what looks like a huge fire out on the island this evening? I got home at 9pm and looked out towards Clemente and it looked totally enflamed.... in 30 years I've never seen that.... we've got 30-50 knt Santa Anas blowing... I Googles but no news.... did find history of it occurring in past out there. 3 hours later its knocked down but not out....What say you?

Quite frequent. They kick the Sportfishing boats out every now and then when they bombard the island. The big stuff is usually down east by Pyramid Cove.

 

[Havazoo]

San Clemente Thanksgiving

 

[monkeyswrench]

San Clemente Thanksgiving View attachment 1069647

Saw this and the first thing I thought of was the "Endless Summer" poster

 

[coolchange]

Dove there many years ago. Captain said be ready to hit the water. He dropped the hook and we went in. Didn’t take long before the radio lit up and the captain was getting an earful from the military.

 

[twocents]

Fire you say on San Clemente Island! The last time I heard about something like that was in the mid-1950s during one of the Catalina Water Ski Races. It was a horrible foggy morning but back then the race started at 8am sharp no matter what. The two favorites, Butch Peterson and Chuck Stearns took off like a shot in their respective 18' flatbottoms and left the rest of the pack behind. Unfortunately, their navigating skills weren't as good as their skiing ability and as they raced side-by-side they missed Catalina entirely and kept on going. Eventually they saw land but it was San Clemente Island, not Catalina. Now they only had a couple of gallons of fuel left so they scouted out a place on San Clemente where they could come ashore. Nobody knew where they were and afternoon soon turned into night. Someone in the small group got the bright idea to build a fire, however the burn got out of control and soon most of the island was on fire. That got the attention of the Coast Guard and the Navy who came to the rescue and eventually put the fire out.

But instead of towing the two boats back to Long Beach, they refilled the fuel tanks and made the pair drive their boats back followiing in the wake of a Coast Guard boat. Over the next few months there was discussion about who was going to pay for the damage the fire did to the military installation, but I'm not aware anything ever came of it.

Here's the believe it or not part of the adventure. About 7 or 8 years later I was over at Chuck Stearns house in Bellflower and there was a goat in the backyard. I asked Chuck when he got the goat. He said that was his San Clemente goat! He claimed that he and Butch caught a baby goat when they were stuck on the island and Chuck decided to bring it back with him in his ski boat as a souvenir. For those who knew Butch and Chuck, it sounds like something they'd do.

 

[HubbaHubbaLife]

Fire you say on San Clemente Island! The last time I heard about something like that was in the mid-1950s during one of the Catalina Water Ski Races. It was a horrible foggy morning but back then the race started at 8am sharp no matter what. The two favorites, Butch Peterson and Chuck Stearns took off like a shot in their respective 18' flatbottoms and left the rest of the pack behind. Unfortunately, their navigating skills weren't as good as their skiing ability and as they raced side-by-side they missed Catalina entirely and kept on going. Eventually they saw land but it was San Clemente Island, not Catalina. Now they only had a couple of gallons of fuel left so they scouted out a place on San Clemente where they could come ashore. Nobody knew where they were and afternoon soon turned into night. Someone in the small group got the bright idea to build a fire, however the burn got out of control and soon most of the island was on fire. That got the attention of the Coast Guard and the Navy who came to the rescue and eventually put the fire out.

But instead of towing the two boats back to Long Beach, they refilled the fuel tanks and made the pair drive their boats back followiing in the wake of a Coast Guard boat. Over the next few months there was discussion about who was going to pay for the damage the fire did to the military installation, but I'm not aware anything ever came of it.

Here's the believe it or not part of the adventure. About 7 or 8 years later I was over at Chuck Stearns house in Bellflower and there was a goat in the backyard. I asked Chuck when he got the goat. He said that was his San Clemente goat! He claimed that he and Butch caught a baby goat when they were stuck on the island and Chuck decided to bring it back with him in his ski boat as a souvenir. For those who knew Butch and Chuck, it sounds like something they'd do.

Great story.... my biggest takeaway was the "18' flatbottoms" running all the way out to San Clemente Island.... thats brazen right there.

 

[stephenkatsea]

I’ll always remember the day our battleship New Jersey was practice firing her Big Guns at SCI, prior to her deploying to Viet Nam. I was on an 85’ Ditmar Donaldson sportfishing miles away from her. But she’d give us one hell of a thud and a shake when she’d fire up her Big Boys.

Got a look at her earlier that morning as she cruised to the south with the sun rising over SCI behind her. I guessed her speed at about 25 knots or so. Beautiful! Another amazing photo op without a camera.