Cabrillo Beach Stroll - San Pedro, CA

Easy Evening Walk

It was a long, busy day yesterday but we still wanted to get our walk in. Being somewhat tired, we opted to skip the trails and headed over to Cabrillo Beach for a much more casual stroll.

We don't get down here as much as we do some of the other places that we like to walk, mostly because it isn't all that challenging. It is a nice little walk though with a good view.

We generally park in front of the clubhouse and head down the sidewalk toward the pier that you see in the above image.

There weren't a whole lot of people there being that it was a bit cool and windy. Just perfect for a brisk walk! Often times the beach is quite packed with people lounging around and children everywhere.

Personally, I won't do much more than walk ankle deep in the water around here, even though there are people fishing and swimming most of the time. As you can see in the background, we're right next to the Los Angeles Harbor.

It just doesn't seem like a safe place to swim if you ask me. One of the major downsides to living around here is that although the views are fantastic, the pollution is terrible!

I also can't imagine that the fish are very healthy. There are actually signs all up and down the pier warning people not to eat the fish. Well, to be fair, they name off specific fish that are supposed to be toxic. But I would hazard to guess that anything you get out of here would not be the best to eat.

It doesn't stop the dozens of people who fish here every day, however. I think they are fishing for themselves, though. I just hope they aren't trying to sell the fish to anyone!

We got to the beach a bit late yesterday, so we had to get a move on before it got too dark. The sun was nearly about to set when we first arrived, but it stays relatively light out for some time after sunset.

The walk that we take is really not all that long and is paved the entire way. We start off on the sidewalk pictured above that leads to a pier. This section of land faces the harbor side of the water.

The nice thing about this side is that the water is calm because of an artificial wall built to break the massive waves coming in from the ocean.

I walked over to the other side to take a picture of the other beach, unprotected by the wall but the waves were still fairly calm. By the time the sun sets, they really start to ramp up.

At this point, the water is still fairly calm. There were actually a few people on in sailboats. It was actually quite a nice evening! Once we were out there for a bit, we thought it was a shame that no one else was around.

After about 20 minutes we started to hustle a little bit because the sun was just about to disappear behind the horizon. I wanted to get some good pictures, but sadly I was distracted by my phone. I continually get bogus calls from Marriott hotel recordings trying to get me to go on a free vacation. But I digress...

Here you can see the beginning of the stone wall that stretches way out into the water and surrounds the harbor. If you look toward the back, you can see the wall doing its job as the waves crash against it. It is like two different oceans when you are next to it looking on either side of the wall.

Over the course of the next few minutes, it seemed to get dark astonishingly fast. You can see that the waves have really picked up, and are crashing against that wall pretty hard!

If the wall weren't there, the water would certainly be hitting anyone standing where I was pretty hard. It is pretty awesome to watch!

On that note, we quickly started to head back toward the car. One thing about California is that no matter how hot it is during the day, the night crispy as it can be. It can also get surprisingly windy out here in the open ocean air.

Oh, look! I guess I did get a tiny peek-a-boo of the sunset. Well, sort of; it's all cloud covered. Still beautiful, all the same!