White Point

White Point is a small pocket cove at the base of the San Pedro bluffs in Los Angeles County, tucked between Point Fermin to the east and the Portuguese Bend stretch to the west. The name comes from the low, chalky headland just west of the cove. The cove faces south-southeast and sits partly in the lee of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which blunts the largest west swells but leaves the beach open to south and southeast wind and swell. The substrate at the water line is cobble and loose rock, with no continuous sand, and finger reefs extend seaward from about 15 feet down to 35 feet. What sets the spot apart is the switchback road that drops off Paseo del Mar to a beach-level lot, the only shore-dive access on this stretch of the Palos Verdes coast where a diver can drive gear to the water rather than carry it down from a bluff. The cove has a second distinctive feature underwater. Warm sulfur seeps from the old hot springs reach the shallows in patches, and marine life is noticeably thinner directly over the vents than at Royal Palms Beach a few hundred yards to the east, where no vents surface.

The site has a documented history that reaches back to the 1890s Japanese abalone fishery and cannery that operated here until about 1905. In 1917, the Tagami brothers and Ramon Sepulveda opened the White Point Hot Springs Hotel around those same sulfur springs, building a two-story hotel, restaurant, three saltwater plunges, and a ballroom. The resort did not last long. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake damaged the buildings and disrupted the spring, and it closed that year. Concrete walls of the hotel swimming pool remain visible in the surf zone at low tide.

The offshore finger reefs make this a rocky reef biome, most productive on the east side of the cove. The reef also supports a kelp forest biome, though density fluctuates year to year with warm-water events and urchin barrens. Cobble and boulder shoreline exposed by the tide holds a well-documented tidepool biome. Where surf breaks over the rocky cobble at the shoreline, the entry itself is a surf zone biome.

Access is through the paid Los Angeles County lot at the foot of the switchback off Paseo del Mar, open dawn to 8:30 p.m., with a roughly $2 early-bird rate before 9 a.m. and about $6 to $7 all day. Street parking is available on Paseo del Mar above. The site is under active construction from 2026 through 2028 for the LA County Sanitation Clearwater Tunnel project and a $3.5 million park renovation, and parking is reduced and restrooms relocated during that period. The entry is rocky and slippery, and low tide leaves rocks exposed, so most divers time entries around a higher tide with light surf. Scuba divers and freedivers tend to work the east-side finger reefs, while snorkelers and tidepoolers stay in the cobble shallows on calmer days. The Joint Water Pollution Control Plant outfall lies offshore, and bacterial counts rise after rain; the Palos Verdes Shelf also carries documented DDT sediment contamination from a mid-twentieth-century discharge, and consumption advisories apply to some local bottomfish. White Point sits outside any marine protected area, so fishing and spearfishing are legal under standard California regulations, though tidepool take is protected and has drawn California Department of Fish and Wildlife enforcement here in recent years. The beach is county-operated, 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.