California Beach Primer

For those of you who, like me, only get to visit the Ocean once in a blue moon, I’ve put together a helpful little FAQ on a common California beach hazard; Oil!

Here’s the beautiful Manhattan Beach located a stone’s throw from a Chevron refinery. The oil barge off in the distance and the faint smell of petroleum in the air should have made me look at things a bit more closely but I was so hypnotized by the beauty of the ocean that those subtle clues were completely lost on me and I assumed that all of the green, brown and black things scattered across the sand were various types of seaweed and so didn't pay close attention to where I was placing my feet. That was a mistake.

Five minutes into my reverie, as I was trying to shake an uncomfortably large chunk of compacted beach sand off of the bottom of my right foot, I realized that the algae-like seaweed I had been walking on wasn’t seaweed at all, but tar-like blobs of oil! It was stuck to the ball of my foot and starting to creep between my toes. For those of you playing along at home, here’s a picture that will help you differentiate between real seaweed and blobs of oil.

I tried peeling it off but that didn’t work. I used my nail to try to get it off but that didn’t work either and actually spread the mess from my foot to my hand. I tried using sand to scrub it off, I tried walking on asphalt to thin it and rub it off but all that did was spread the mess further and further. I managed to scrape off an inch or two using the curb but that was the best I could do. There was no way this oil was coming off without surfactant intervention so we headed off to CVS for supplies.

If you find yourself in my shoes, or rather, in my bare feet, here’s what you’ll need: A stiff nail brush, good quality dish soap and a scrubby or two. Note: Do NOT use Magic Erasers! They’ll work but since they are micro-abrasives, you’ll be giving yourself a heck of a burn in the process!

Here’s my California Beach Oil Removal Kit:

Apply liberal amounts of Palmolive, a little bit of water and start scrubbing. I bought two scrubbies and killed the first one liberating the bulk of the blob from the bottom of my foot. The second scrubby finished the job on my foot and the nail brush took care of my hands.

The further we got from Manhattan Beach, the less oil we ran into but even on Long Beach we found it. Word to the wise; watch your step!