Down by the sea
San Pedro is frequently overlooked for its tonier cousin Rancho Palos Verdes. Yet the tide pools at San Pedro’s Royal Palms Beach Park are not to be missed.
West of Terminal Island and Point Fermin, curving down to the sea around the coastal mountain holding San Pedro’s hillside community of South Shores, Royal Palms Beach sits in a wide cove split into three main areas. Surfers tend to claim the far western section with a few adventurous and perhaps foolhardy riders in the rocky-bottomed center zone. Far west and east, low tide reveals the charcoal-colored rocks pitted with holes bored by piddock clams. Larger rocks in the eastern section of the tide pool break the waves, often with a spectacular plume of ocean spray accompanied by the screams of unsuspecting waders. Commonsense warning: keep away from the edges of rocks where the waves crash; chances are you won’t be swept out to sea, but the sharp rocks are sure to do a number on gentle flesh.
Info
Address Royal Palms Beach, 1799 Paseo del Mar, San Pedro, CA 90731, +1 310.305.9503 | Getting there Paid on-site lot. Scaled pricing: 6am–9am & 4pm–close, $3; 9am–4pm, $8 | Hours Daily 6am–dusk. In winter, parking lot opens at 8am.| Tip The 102-acre White Point Nature Preserve (1600 West Paseo Del Mar, San Pedro, CA 90731) offers dog-friendly trails above the bluffs with a fantastic view of Santa Catalina.
Intermittent pools left by the receding tide reveal many purplish anemones. Boulders rise above the pools covered with clinging blue and gray mussels. Hard-shelled striped chitons look like loners by comparison, periodically marking the wet boulders. Trails of tubular marine worm shells can be seen coiled and stretched out like fossils over the rocks. What you won’t find at the Royal Palms Beach Park are a lot of people.
The namesake Royal Palms are at the western section of the park in three regal rows with a Copacabana-esque sidewalk installed around them and a line of sturdy picnic tables. The park offers restrooms and a beachside playground for children, but no food. From almost any vantage point you’ll have a fantastic view of Santa Catalina Island, just 22 miles from the coast.
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