Point Sal Beach
Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara County · California
Visibility Breakdown
Visibility by position
Solid = diver report · outlined = today's forecast
Break Zone: The range of water where the waves break and sediment is stirred up.
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.
This chart shows measured diver reports only.
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Coastal Bulletin
About Point Sal Beach
Why it reads 2–6 ft
Today's forecast runs
Dawn is the clearest window — onshore wind picks up by late morning and surface chop stirs the bottom through the afternoon.
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
Roadside parking only at the end of Brown Road off Highway 1 south of Guadalupe. The road past the gate is closed since 1998 storm damage; access is by a 9.9-mile round-trip hike through Casmalia Hills with 1,873 ft of gain.
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See the offshore water on Pelagiscape →Clarity, temperature breaks and kelp off this beach.
About Point Sal Beach
Point Sal Beach is a remote hike-in beach on the northwestern Santa Barbara County coast, west of Guadalupe and south of the Santa Maria River mouth. The beach sits at the base of the Casmalia Hills below the Point Sal headland and faces open Pacific water with no road access. The paved road that once descended to a State Beach parking area has been closed since storm damage in 1998, and the only legal public access today is on foot from a small parking area at the end of Brown Road, gated at the trailhead.
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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