Rocky Entries

The Sea Ranch
Sonoma County

The Sea Ranch is a privately developed community with a reputation for enjoying tourist vacation rental income but preferring to do without the tourists themselves. They have their own private security patrols, claim title to certain beaches and have designated certain ocean waters as marine reserves. Whether or not those claims and designations would stand up in court, do be forewarned that parking on Sea Ranch property without displaying the proper pass will get your vehicle booted in a Texas minute.

In a concession to the California Coast Commission, there are five public access easements off Hwy 1 with teeny, tiny parking lots (mostly 2 to 5 parking slots) and restroom facilities maintained by Sonoma County. Parking is, last I checked, $3 per day unless you have a Sonoma County Parks parking pass (something I recommend if you're visiting/diving the area a lot). The following are the public access points at Sea Ranch.

	Location:	Southernmost public access through The Sea Ranch.
	Mile Marker:	SON 5085
	Access:
	Facilities:
	Nearest Public Telephone:

	Location:	About 2 miles north of Black Point.
	Mile Marker:	SON 5229
	Access:
	Facilities:
	Nearest Public Telephone:

Pebble Beach is a small public beach located within the upscale Sea Ranch Village. Access is via a narrow easement that begins at the four car public access parking lot just off Highway 1. It's a very short walk from the parking to a stairway leading onto the beach; access to prime dive sites on the north coast don't get much easier than this.

Pebble Beach faces to the west and is fairly exposed regardless of which direction the swell is originating from. Additionally, the water is fairly shallow for a hundred yards or more offshore. This is definitely not a good place to go diving when the surf is up. In spite of the temptation of shallow depths, new divers in particular should steer clear of this site on rough days unless their goal is a lesson in surf zone diving accompanied by extreme surge.

On very calm days, there aren't many better places for a new diver to get an introduction to abalone diving. The depths are shallow and the abalone plentiful. The only negative is that the local rock is very knobby. This makes it very difficult to get an iron under the abalone you find. It's simply difficult to work the blade the 1" or so under the foot necessary to get good leverage. Be forewarned of this and be willing to give up quickly; there are plenty of other abalone in the area.

From the middle of the beach, at the patch of bedrock at the water's edge, the area on the right averages 5' to 10' in depth. The bottom is very rocky with lots of nooks and crannies and an occasional abalone. Someone with a good eye for spotting abs will have an easy time getting their limit of abalone up to 8. As you venture farther out on this reef system, the depth increases gradually to average around 15'. The abalone population also increases in quantity and average size.

Straight out from the bedrock outcropping at the beach is a sandy channel. With good kelp cover, that channel is quite obvious as it passes to the right of two offshore washrocks. Just beyond the outer washrock, there's an extensive reef that varies from 3' to 20' in depth. Abalone can be found starting in the very shallowest depths and it's quite easy to get your limit of 8.5"+ abalone from this area.

	Location:	About 1 1/2 miles north of Pebble Beach.
	Mile Marker:	SON 5396
	Access:
	Facilities:
	Nearest Public Telephone:

Last Modified: January 31, 2005

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