Ocean Cove

Ocean Cove is a shallow, well-sheltered cove at Ocean Cove Store and Campground, a private operation on Highway 1 just south of the Salt Point SMCA. A small-boat launch ramp runs from the campground road straight to the water, one of the very few working launches in Sonoma County, listed by California's Division of Boating and Waterways as facility 1340 and handling boats up to about 17 feet on a high tide. Depths in the cove run 5 to 20 feet, and the outer reef reaches 20 to 40 feet.

Cobble and boulder cover the cove floor and outer reef. Much of that structure now sits bare after the sea urchin barrens took hold, and that unkelped rock is a rocky reef biome. Seasonal bull kelp returns to the outer reef, an annual single-stipe growth that dies back through winter, and that kelp is the kelp forest biome. The canopy is thinner than before the 2014 to 2019 collapse.

Scuba, freediving, and kayaking are the working dive-side uses. California Diving News reports the cove as habitat for a large number of young-of-the-year rockfish, and the site was one of the North Coast's beginner-abalone destinations before the fishery closed statewide in 2018.

Parking is the paved campground lot with a road down to the beach. Camping runs $40 cash or $45 credit per vehicle per night, and boat launching is included with camping. A day-use rate is not published on the campground's own site, and current rates and seasonal hours are available from the store.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California regulations. The Salt Point SMCA southern boundary sits roughly 180 feet north of the cove entrance, and any diver or paddler who crosses that line is under SMCA rules, where only recreational take of finfish is currently allowed.