Paddleboarder Churns Out Aquatic Saga

By: DENNIS McLELLAN
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Newport Beach paddleboarder extraordinaire Larry Capune has been
making newspaper headlines for more than 25 years with his long-distance
adventures along the nation's coastline.

"It's One Man Against the Sea," proclaims one headline from the '60s.

"Killer Whale, Shark, Nudist and Ron Ziegler Mark Trip," says one from
the '70s.

"Paddler Ducks Sharks, Freighter," says another from the '80s.

In all, the frequent paddler has logged some 19,000 miles on his 10
major paddling trips, the most recent in 1987: a 165-day, 4,090-mile
odyssey from Chicago to Washington (across the Great Lakes, up the St.
Lawrence River and down the Atlantic Coast).

Along the way, Capune has been bitten by a sea turtle, a bluefish and
a dog. He has been mistaken for a target by the Army off Ft. Ord, and he
has delayed a missile launching at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

He also has been hit by a tanker once and by freighters twice. And he
has been hit in the head by a Coke bottle tossed by a fishing pier owner
who claimed he was scaring the fish. (The gash in Capune's head required
25 stitches.) Traveling on a shoestring budget and carrying only a
waterproof knapsack, Capune usually depends on the kindness of strangers
whenever he puts in for the night.

There have been times he has been greeted with keys to cities and put
up in fancy hotel suites. Other times he has slept on the beach, burying
himself in the sand to keep the bugs and mosquitoes away.

But mostly he stays with families who offer to take him in. The most
memorable stopover was in Hyannis Port, Mass., where Rose Kennedy wrapped
the discouraged and freezing paddleboarder in a blanket and encouraged
him not to give up on his goal. Capune spent three days with the
Kennedys, and Ethel Kennedy invited him to stop in the next time he came
by. (He did.)

There are enough experiences to fill a book.

In fact, someone told Capune in the early '70s that he ought to start
writing it all down, lest he forget the details of his many adventures.

He began writing in 1972.

Eighteen years later, he's still at it.

"This is it," he said, pulling a typewritten page out of his electric
typewriter. "Right now I'm on Page 5,388--Chapter 256."

Stacked in a corner of his small desk are the completed pages of his
two decades of writing--all done with two fingers, hunt-and-peck-style.

The manuscript--a rainbow of different-colored pages--measures 25 1/2
inches high.

It's enough to make even the prolific James Michener blanch.

A natural-born storyteller, Capune has been lecturing about his trips
at elementary, junior high and high schools for 20 years.

He's talkative and opinionated--a self-confident kind of guy who has
braved sharks and killer whales, survived being lost at sea 13 times and
twice been found unconscious and nearly frozen.

But Capune knows his own limits: "I'm not a writer," he said.

What he is looking for, he said, is an experienced ghostwriter who can
take his unwieldly manuscript--misspellings and all--and turn it into a
book. Or several books.

As he says: "My life is more than one book."

Because the narrative of his trips is so episodic, Capune thinks his
story also would lend itself to a TV series. Or a movie.

In fact, he said, he has a film excerpt from his appearance on the old
"I've Got a Secret" TV show in which the first thing out of panelist
Steve Allen's mouth is: "This sounds like a movie!"

As Capune sees it, he has something unique to offer: "No one else in
the world does what I do."

Dubbed "Larry Lifeguard" by Sports Illustrated, Capune was a lifeguard
for the state of California in 1963 when he made his first trip on a
paddleboard: He paddled home to Newport Beach from Carpinteria, south of
Santa Barbara (147 miles in four days).

Except for a touch of gray, the muscular Capune still looks the part
of the quintessential California lifeguard with sun-bleached blond hair
and a toothy grin. And at 47, he still goes barefoot and is seldom seen
in anything other than shorts and T-shirts.

He lives in a rented, '30s-vintage house on lower Balboa Peninsula
with his twin brother, Marty, a film location manager.

Capune makes his living as a lifeguard in Dover Shores and by
lecturing at school assemblies, sometimes as many as eight a month.

In detailing his exploits to students, he delivers a motivational,
anti-drug message: "My message is to take an adventure instead of drugs:
You can do anything if you think you can." And he tells them to "put
purpose before purse: It's not how much you get for doing something; it's
what you do" that counts.

Because his lecture bookings have fallen off a bit lately, Capune has
been able to devote more time to his manuscript.

He writes almost every morning, putting in at least three hours a day.
He's on his second typewriter since he started; he wore out the first.

With a navigational chart propped up in front of him and his logbook
next to his typewriter, Capune is able, he said, to conjure up the
feelings and details of his trips. And he's making headway in completing
his aquatic saga.

"I'm only 70 days away from being at the end of the last trip," he
said.

Capune still maintains a rigorous training regimen, paddling for at
least an hour in the open ocean "not once in awhile, not five days out of
seven," he said. "In rain, shine, fog--no matter what, because how can I
tell the kids I do something if I don't do it? Even if I'm sick, I go."

He's not sure when his next trip will be, but he's got an idea:
paddling up the Mississippi River. "I figure a dead cockroach can go
down the Mississippi; why not go up? That's more of a challenge," he
said.

That, of course, would be another chapter.