riptideracing.com<\/a>.<\/p>\nYoung sailor dies<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old man who died recently on a hiking incident on Mount Baldy has been identified as Marcus Muench Casanova. He is survived by his father and mother, Ken and Fabiana (mother), and brother Nicolas.<\/p>\n
Casanova was from Seal Beach and was a local sailor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are destroyed by the loss of our beloved Marcus,\u201d a message from his family said. \u201cHe was a graduate of Los Alamitos High, a freshman at Santa Clara University\u2019s Levy School of Business, and an avid sailor and outdoorsman. He loved racing on Jolie with their tight knit crew of best friends and family. With them, he raced LBYC\u2019s \u2018Catalina Series,\u2019 the \u2018Newport to Ensenada,\u2019 and was preparing for the 2026 Pacific Cup to Hawaii. He was also a sailing instructor at Leeway for three years and counting, where he loved sharing his love of the water with young sailors-to-be.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly, he was an incredibly sweet and empathetic young man that will be missed sorely by many,\u201d the family added. \u201cIt is difficult to explain the pain and anguish we are going through and ask for privacy as we try to find our way. Thank you for your love and kind thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casanova also worked as a sailing instructor for the Long Beach Parks, Recreation, and Marine Department\u2019s Leeway Sailing and Aquatics Center, according to city spokesperson Kevin Lee.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarcus had a rare gift of connecting with everyone he met, making summers and weekends brighter for sailing program participants and his fellow colleagues,\u201d Lee wrote on LinkedIn. \u201cHe was always bright and approached every task with warmth and enthusiasm, whether teaching sailing or helping with simple duties like washing windows. Marcus always went above and beyond in his responsibilities, leaving a lasting impression with all who knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Small world
\n![\"Grunion](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GRG-L-OTW-COL-0108-02.jpg\")
Grunion columnist Jo Murray\u2019s cousin Steve Shongut, from New York, will arive on Princess Cruises\u2019 Island Princess on Thursday, Jan. 8. This 2003 file photo shows the Island Princess being escorted out to sea in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Mindy Schauer, The Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n
In this week\u2019s small world department, my cousin Steve Shongut, from New York, will arive on Princess Cruises\u2019 Island Princess on Thursday, Jan. 8. I posted on social media that I had sailed on the original Island Princess 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
Another friend, David Mayer \u2014 the son of \u201cMama Mayer,\u201d who trained hundreds of Queen Mary tours guides on how to spiel about transatlantic travel \u2014 noted he too is on the cruise sailing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Turns out, the two of them had played pickle ball on board \u2014 and exchanged sea stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marine Boat Auction, hosted by Long Beach\u2019s Marine Bureau, will take place later this month. The auction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,3929,3930,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":{"0":"post-125183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-grunion-on-the-water","10":"tag-grunion-sports","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-los-angeles-county","15":"tag-the-grunion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}