Trestles Beach
San Clemente · San Diego County · California
Visibility Breakdown
Visibility by position
Solid = diver report · outlined = our reading
Post Break: The range past where any waves are forming, where the water starts to have a significant increase in visibility. There might be some sediment here, but swell energy is diffused and the water is calmer.
Open Water: This zone is far out enough from the shore that the water is at its clearest. It’s deep enough that sediment is not disturbed by the wave energy at the surface. Haze can sit near the surface, so the water is usually clearer the deeper you go.
Through the day
Today's visibility readings at this spot, shown at the hour each one was taken.
Every bar is a reading for the Post Break zone.
✓ = reading reviewed by hand
auto = reading not yet reviewed by hand
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Coastal Bulletin
About Trestles Beach
Why it reads 6–10 ft
Medium confidence
7-Day Forecast
Today is the live headline above. Tomorrow onward is the algorithm's forecast from predicted swell, wind, and rain, updated each morning and at 6 PM Pacific.
Map and parking
San Clemente, CA 92672
No road reaches the beach. Free street parking and a paid lot sit at South El Camino Real and Cristianitos Road, followed by a walk of roughly 1 mile down the Trestles Beach Trail under Interstate 5. A separate 1.5-mile nature trail connects San Mateo Campground to the same sand.
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See the offshore water on Pelagiscape →Clarity, temperature breaks and kelp off this beach.
About Trestles Beach
Trestles Beach is the cobblestone shoreline at San Mateo Point, where San Mateo Creek reaches the ocean at the northern end of San Onofre State Beach. The name comes from the railroad trestle that carries the tracks over the creek behind the sand. The Orange and San Diego county line crosses the point, putting the beach in San Diego County with the San Clemente bluffs immediately north of it in Orange County. Surfers split the stretch into breaks named from north to south, Cottons and Uppers above the trestle and Lowers and Middles below it. California State Parks has managed the land since 1971 under an agreement with the Navy, which holds it as part of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, and the Trestles Wetlands Natural Preserve sits behind the beach along the lower creek.
Species found here
Researched habitat and range candidates. A listed species may be seasonal or depth-limited; this is not a confirmed sighting at this location.
Spot strategies
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