Imperial Beach

Imperial Beach is California's southernmost beach city, its shoreline running down to the US-Mexico border. The beach is long, flat, and sand-bottomed, anchored at the center by the Imperial Beach Pier at the foot of Evergreen Avenue, with the Imperial Beach Promenade running along the upper berm on Seacoast Drive. Nearly 2 miles south of the pier, the Tijuana River spills into the ocean. The Tijuana River Mouth State Marine Conservation Area begins well north of that mouth, roughly 0.9 miles below the pier, and runs south to the border.

Sand runs the length of the bottom, waves break straight onto it, and no reef or kelp holds anywhere offshore, which makes the entire stretch a surf zone biome. Surfing, swimming, and hook-and-line fishing from the pier and the sand carry most of the daily use. Without structure to hold fish and with water clarity that rarely cooperates, spearfishing, snorkeling, and scuba are uncommon. The Tijuana River is the defining hazard here. Contamination from the plume regularly closes the shoreline and the pier to all water contact, and after rain events those closures can extend past the pier and along several miles of beach.

Parking is easy by San Diego standards. Free street parking lines Seacoast Drive and the residential blocks behind it, several pay lots sit near the pier, and only summer weekends fill the area up.

Imperial Beach Municipal Code Chapter 12.60 prohibits carrying a speargun armed, cocked, or drawn on the beach and requires that any speargun be used at least 1,000 feet outside the shoreline, which closes shore-access spearfishing along the whole named beach. City pier rules also bar spears and spearguns on the pier. Inside the Tijuana River Mouth State Marine Conservation Area, take is restricted to coastal pelagic species other than market squid, and only by hand-held dip net. Outside these bounds, fishing and spearfishing are legal under standard California regulations.