[CINC] Whale Watch Pioneer Extraordinaire

[Deborah Lee Clark]

I bought this for myself as a gift and can't wait to indulge.  This story 
reminds me of Chuck Rennie's lecture to us as newcomers about how each of us can 
make a difference in ways that originally may seem very small and unremarkable 
but inspire others to go on to great works that preserve and protect what we 
love.

Enjoy,
Deb Clark



________________________________
From: paul jr petrich <ppetrich39 at me.com>
To: channel_islands_ naturalist_corps 
<channel_islands_naturalist_corps at rain.org>
Sent: Thu, November 15, 2012 10:54:57 PM
Subject: [CINC] Whale Watch Pioneer Extraordinaire

Ocean and Island People,


 I just finished reading, An Ocean of Inspiration: The John Olguin Story ( 
Harzen; Brunnick; Schaadt ). I recommend it highly to anyone involved in 
outreach for the CINMS and the CINP.

 The story illuminates John Olguin as a pivotal pioneer in educating the public 
toward the preservation and the protection of our local ocean ecosystem. The 
interpretive methodology we ocean and island people use today to convey the 
overlapping missions of our CINMS and CINP owe much to this life guard from San 
Pedro.

 The Olguin story starts in the early 1950s when he turned Grunion runs and tide 
pool excursions into educational community events at Cabrillo Beach. By the 
early 1970s he had enlisted and trained a whale watch corps at the Cabrillo 
Beach Museum which became the model for all whale watch corps all over our 
country ( including the CINC ). To this end, John Olguin even became the 
president of the then newly established American Cetacean Society, to better 
educate and promote his whale watch corps. He encouraged the Society to move its 
office to San Pedro, and enlisted their advice in creating the first marine 
mammal watching code for whale watch boats, which still remains the basis of the 
one we use today. His corps of volunteers fanned out all over the Southern 
California coastline spreading this code to whale watch skippers ( who he had 
often recruited ).

 The reader is also told how this lifeguard, without a college education, was 
the main mover in transforming a small shell collection at the Cabrillo Beach 
Bath House into a renown interactive museum and marine education facility. After 
retiring from life guard duties he became its director.

 The "rest of this story" tells us how John Olguin had the Channel Islands in 
his DNA, as well as the ocean and all living things in it. In their 15 foot 
rowboat, John and his wife Muriel, rowed over and back to to Santa Catalina 
Island from San Pedro 12 times! They also rowed to Anacapa from Oxnard, and from 
island to island. They even circumnavigated Santa Rosa and San Miguel on 
separate ventures. They always slept in the rowboat. However, one trip they took 
to Catalina  with John's brother, Leonard, was a week long excursion to Emerald 
Bay, where-in they all lived off the land and sea, just as he and his brother's 
Native American Tongva ancestors did. John's father had walked as a young man 
from Mexico to San Pedro.  John's mother was local native Tongva ( Gabrielino ). 
  Paul Petrich 
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