Surfers Knoll beach

I kept it local for this blog post and visited Ventura harbor Village which offers several ways to take advantage of California’s beach lifestyle. Located across the street from the village, Surfers Knoll beach has awesome views of channel islands coastline. This beach offers a retreat to relax, play, and explore and is popular for locals because it has a great surf break. If unfamiliar, a surf break is a permanent obstruction like a coral reef, rock, shoal, or headland that causes a wave to break, forming a barreling wave or other wave that can be surfed, before it eventually collapses. With it being so vast and wide, the main activities taking place on this beach are relaxing in the sun, long walks and expert surfing. I say expert because if you’re a beginner it is not ideal due to common rip tides but there are plenty of warning signs about the rip-tides and if you can read the ocean, you can see where not to swim. Walking to the far end of the beach, you can find the mouth of the Santa Clara River which empties into the Pacific where I found many species of birds. Personally this is my favorite spot because of its long stretch of natural beach.

Looking at this beach through a cultural lens, Ventura County Coast is one of the original birthplaces of California surf culture. Surfers come from all over the world to surf making it one of America’s top surfing destinations. Although there are many of these surf towns all over America, Ventura county and this beach in particular offer  quality of life,  quality of surf, and also other variables such as climate, consistency and variety of waves.