Malibu Lagoon State Beach

Malibu Lagoon State Beach is a California State Park unit on the north shore of Santa Monica Bay, gathered around three connected features: the brackish Malibu Lagoon at the mouth of Malibu Creek, the surf break known as Surfrider Beach immediately east of the lagoon mouth, and Malibu Pier. The pier is a wooden public pier roughly 780 feet long, originally built in 1905 by Frederick Hastings Rindge for the Rindge family ranch and opened to the public in 1934. It is registered as California Historical Landmark No. 1018 at 23000 Pacific Coast Highway. On the bluff just west of the lagoon, the Adamson House, a 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival mansion finished with Malibu Potteries tile, operates as a state historic park alongside the Malibu Lagoon Museum. Surfrider Beach was designated the first World Surfing Reserve by the Save The Waves Coalition in October 2010.

The bottom at the surf break is sand and cobble, fed by sediment carried out of Malibu Creek, and the breaking waves there make the entry a surf zone biome. The pier pilings and a string of low rocky outcrops west of the pier toward Carbon Beach add a rocky reef biome within a short swim of the sand. No offshore kelp forest is documented along this stretch of coast.

Surfing dominates the water use. Right-handers up to 300 yards long form on a south swell and break across three sections known locally as First Point, Second Point, and Third Point, First Point being the one closest to the lagoon mouth. Swimming on the sand east and west of the pier is common, and pier and shore fishing are both common as well. Snorkeling and scuba are uncommon because rocky structure is limited and the surf break dominates the water adjacent to the pier.

The Malibu Lagoon State Beach lot off Cross Creek Road takes paid parking at hourly rates during the day. Free shoulder parking on Pacific Coast Highway near the pier is often full by 9 a.m. on summer weekends, and pier-side parking is metered. Fishing and spearfishing are legal under standard California regulations, and no rule sets a spearfishing exclusion around Malibu Pier. Surfrider is a county-operated beach, so Los Angeles County Code section 17.12.450 bars using or carrying a fishing pole, spear, sling, or other spearfishing gear in the ocean within 100 feet of anyone in the water who is not using the same, and lifeguards can close any stretch to fishing.