Seal Beach
Seal Beach:
This beach is just Southeast of Belmont Shores with the
San Gabriel River, a harbor channel and a jetty separating them. Seal
Beach
has
similar, but often a bit stronger winds. The ocean kiteboarding area is
much smaller than Belmont Shores, less than 1/4 of the size. The number
of kitesurfers is also much less, on the order of a dozen on a summer
weekend. Waves are
still generally small
unless there is a South swell, because of shielding from the Long Beach
harbor. Be
particularily careful about stringrays (shuffle your feet) as they like
the warm water flowing out from the San Gabriel River. This
is an intermediate / advanced level only beach since the limited launch
access corridor
requires
the ability to kiteboard upwind back to your launch point. The access
corridor is toward the Northwest end of the beach and is clearly marked
by a pair of signs.
Also do not kite within 200 feet of the pier or within 500 feet of the
channel entrance. There
is a very nice grass kite setup area next to the parking lot. You
can self land your kite here in a wind shadow area behind the bushes
and trees at the Southeast corner of the setup area. Unlike Belmont,
you can kitesurf right up to the sand. Parking is
$2 for two hours or $5 for all day. Good: nice grassy kite setup area,
relatively uncrowded. Bad: small kiting area with the pier downwind if
you crash. Click here for the local kitesurfing rules.
More info & links:
- Google map -
- IKitesurf - Wind measurements and predictions
- Weather -
- Beachcam -
- SCKA kiting info - More local info is also available from Kitebeaches.com.
- Bike trail - Something else fun to do when the winds are weak.
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Copyright 2007 by Dan Slater, All rights
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