Goff Cove

Goff Cove is a small beach in Laguna Beach, Orange County, set between Treasure Island Beach and Christmas Cove below the Montage Laguna Beach resort. Goff Island, a large rock tied to the mainland by a spit of sand, stands at the southwest end of the beach, and city rules bar climbing it. A wooden stairway leads down to the cove from the north end of the walkway through Treasure Island Park, and the ramp that serves Christmas Cove offers a second way down. Outdoor showers and restrooms serve the beach.

A reef peninsula runs out from Goff Island, cut by small walls, overhangs, and caves, and that rock forms the rocky reef biome at the center of the site. Depths run from about 10 to 30 feet. Open sand between the reefs makes up the sandy flats biome, where bat rays are common, and tide pooling among the rocks at the edges of the cove adds the tidepool biome.

The city describes the cove as protected from most surf, with a small shorebreak over a rocky bottom, and that shelter makes it a common entry for snorkelers and scuba divers. Swell can still set up currents along the rocks and hazardous conditions around the reef, and surge runs strongest off the point and in the shallows of the reef to the southeast. A route many divers use begins at the Goff Cove stairs, works the reef off Goff Island, and follows a compass course southeast to the reef off Treasure Island Beach before exiting up the ramp.

Paid public parking sits in the city's Treasure Island garage off Wesley Drive at South Coast Highway, with restrooms at the south end of the lot. Under California Code of Regulations Title 14, all take of living, geological, and cultural marine resources is prohibited in the Laguna Beach State Marine Reserve, which covers Goff Cove and Goff Island, and the city bars fishing at the beach.