hola,
Just “flying” over SOCAL coast and found this kind of artificial island in front of Newport Beach.
I’ve been searching on Google about artificial islands in Newport but only Balboa Isl. (inside NB harbour) appears.
I wonder if any of you LA neighbours know what I’m talking about.
That is actually Long Beach, and what you are looking at is an oil drilling operation. Due to the breakwater, there is no surf in Long Beach. Bummer.
-Brian
There is actually excellent surf around the jetties seen in that photo, but very, very fickle. You pretty much have to be a local, checking it everyday, to get it good. I caught one day when waves were breaking in the channel there , the rides were so long it was like a point break, but that is very rare.
Howzit llilibel, The area just north of the Jetty is Belmont Shores and they do get surf on rare occasions. The south channel is Ray Bay and it gets good also plus the water is really warm. The last time I surfed Ray BAy was in 89' and what got me was the sand beach went all the way to the end of the Crabs jetty, when I was a kid and surfed there the beach was about 50 to 75 yards from the end of the jetty. Aloha,Kokua
In my day thats were almost everybody in the area learned to surf. It was like surfing in a bathtub!
Howzit DanB, You've got that right, when we were surfing there it was in the early sixties and since we didn't own wet suits it was very comfortable surfing there,just had to watch out not to step on any sting rays which is why it is called Ray Bay. Back then the steam plant was closer to the water.Aloha,Kokua
yup the channel to the north/left is the entrance to the harbor and the channel to the south/right is the San Gabriel river mouth also referred to as the hot water channel. So. Cal Edison uses the water as cooling water for the power gernerators.
That is were I learned to water ski in the 70’s. Some winter days up near the water outlet the water would get in the upper 90’s maybe into the low 100’s. Down stream near the ocean/waves the water temp would be diluted quite a bit but still a nice elevated temp over the average Pacific ocean temp.
That great hearing so many other people started there! We use to ride our bikes through Belmont Shore to the Bay, paddle across, get out freezing cold, then jump into that warm river bath water. The beach never felt so good. However, the warm water really attracted some weird sea life (this was during the mid 70’s).
I have surfed Ray Bay a coulpe of times and I’d have to say that was the nastiest water I have ever surfed in. it smelled wierd too. I was glad to shower of right quick after surfing there. In Longbeach there is a break about 3/4 the way to the north end of the beach…it gets big on steep south swells when waves make it into the harbor through the break water channel opening… but it breaks in about 2 feet of water and I have only seen skim boarders ridding it.
I heard there was talk of removing part of the breakwater to get surf back at the south end of Longbeach.
Yep,
Not an oil drilling.
It seems to be an artificial island, with houses and a harbour.
Believe it or not, that an oil drilling platform. I went on a tour of one as part of one of my college classes. From the outside they look like they’re hotels, but on the inside they’re like industrial complexes. The do a lot of stant drilling on them.
Grew up in Rossmoor (Seal Beach) in the early 60’s till 69. Seal Beach was definetely a spawning ground for many surfers. Belmont Shores was seldom good but like anywhere else it had it’s days. ‘Seven-twos’ was the name of the spot(72nd Street) we used to occasionally surf by paddling across the channels. Never heavily surfed, it’s now exploded with kiters(my parents still live in the house I grew up in).
Water quality… it’s always sucked. Ray (guaranteed you’d get tagged if you walked on the bottom)Bay was called the Pee Hole when I was a kid. 