Santa Monica

Santa Monica is a coastal city in western Los Angeles County with a wide sand shoreline fronting Santa Monica Bay. The defining structure is Santa Monica Pier, a double-jointed wooden pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue. The original Municipal Pier section opened in 1909, and the adjoining Pleasure Pier section was added in 1916; the two were later joined into the single double-jointed structure standing today, running roughly 1,600 feet from the shore. The Pleasure Pier section carries Pacific Park, a small amusement park whose Ferris wheel is operated as the world's first solar-powered Ferris wheel. A sign at the base of the pier marks the western terminus of Historic Route 66. The surrounding shoreline is part of Santa Monica State Beach, a 3.5-mile state beach unit running from the Annenberg Community Beach House at the north end to the Venice city border at the south, with lifeguard service operated by Los Angeles County.

The shoreline is sand throughout, with breaking waves landing directly on the beach and no rocky structure or kelp within swimming distance. That makes the spot a surf zone biome. The Bay Foundation runs a kelp-forest restoration project in Santa Monica Bay, but the targeted reef sits off the Palos Verdes Peninsula roughly 12 miles south of here and is not part of the Santa Monica beach itself.

The beach is a well-known swimming and surfing destination, and pier fishing is a primary activity from the Santa Monica Pier deck, which requires no fishing license under the public-pier exemption. With no rocky structure or kelp at the shoreline, spearfishing, snorkeling, and scuba from shore are all uncommon.

Paid municipal lots sit at the foot of Colorado Avenue beneath the pier and along Pacific Coast Highway north of it, with hourly rates and a daily cap. Metered street parking runs along Ocean Avenue, and the pier deck has a separate paid lot. Spaces fill on weekends and on pier-event days. Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California regulations, except that spearfishing is prohibited within 1,000 feet of Santa Monica Pier per California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 1.88.