Leffingwell Landing

Leffingwell Landing is a small rocky cove at the north end of Moonstone Beach Drive in Cambria, with a small concrete boat ramp inside the cove. The ramp is the only shore launch for small boats and kayaks for miles of coast in either direction. A day-use park above the cove has free parking, picnic tables, restrooms, and a footbridge over Leffingwell Creek. The cove itself is small, rocky, and ringed by exposed rock and kelp. Cobble bottom inside the cove gives way to rocky reef in roughly 30 to 50 feet of water just outside. The entire spot sits inside the Cambria State Marine Park.

The cobble inside the cove and the rocky reef just outside, with bare-rock structure and tide pools in 30 to 50 feet of water, make this a rocky reef biome. Bull kelp anchored on the offshore reef grows up through the water column to the surface, adding a kelp forest biome immediately outside the cove mouth.

Scuba diving from the boat ramp into the cove and out to the kelp is the dominant activity here, and Leffingwell Landing is the most accessible kelp-forest shore dive on the Cambria coast. Spearfishing in the kelp is common, and kayak launches from the ramp for paddles north and south along the Cambria SMP coastline are common as well. Hook-and-line fishing from the rocks is regular. Snorkeling on calm days is occasional, and surfing is uncommon. The cove functions as a put-in for divers more than a destination beach.

Free day-use parking with restrooms and picnic tables sits above the cove. The Cambria State Marine Park covers the entire spot. Recreational fishing, including spearfishing, is allowed inside the SMP under standard California regulations. Commercial take is prohibited.