Pacific Beach

Pacific Beach is the long sand crescent on the Pacific side of the San Diego peninsula, immediately north of Mission Beach. Crystal Pier reaches out from the foot of Garnet Avenue, with the small cottages of Crystal Pier Hotel built out over the surf at its base. Ownership of the pier is split, with the City of San Diego holding the outer public deck and the family behind Crystal Pier Hotel and Cottages holding the inner section around the cottages, and the public has walk-around access during posted hours. Garnet Avenue runs east from the pier through the neighborhood's bar and restaurant strip. The oceanfront boardwalk continues up from Mission Beach and ends at Law Street, above which a seawall and bluffs carry the shoreline north to Tourmaline Surf Park at the foot of Tourmaline Street, which marks the north end of Pacific Beach and the south end of the La Jolla coast.

The surf zone biome covers the entire crescent, with sand from the shoreline out and no rocky reef or kelp anywhere offshore.

Surfing and swimming account for most of the water use, and hook-and-line surf fishing is common along the sand. With no rock or kelp offshore to hold fish close in, spearfishing, snorkeling, and scuba are all uncommon here.

Free street parking on the residential blocks fills before 9 a.m. on summer weekends. The paid lots and metered street parking on Garnet Avenue near the pier are the next option, and the Tourmaline Surf Park lot at the north end tends to be the easier one once Garnet fills. Take of all living marine resources is prohibited north of Diamond Street, where the water sits inside the South La Jolla State Marine Reserve, and that boundary takes in the Tourmaline Surf Park end of the crescent. South of Diamond Street, fishing and spearfishing are legal under standard California regulations. The city owns the public deck of Crystal Pier, so San Diego Municipal Code section 63.20.16 applies there: no skin diving within 75 feet of the pier, and no fishing spear or spear gun carried onto it.