Salt Creek:
Nestled in a beautiful cove at the northern end of Laguna Niguel lies Salt Creek, a watery playground of long pointbreak-style lefts, wedgy A-frames, relentless shorebreak and sand-gurgling rights. You name the type of wave, and Creek probably has it. Now add spongers, B-grade pros, gangstas from Santa Ana, 14-year-old girls, the entire Dana Hills surf team, wealthy tourists, newlyweds and, of course, Pat O’Connell, and you have a typical day at Creek. It’s an interesting mix, but amazingly, everyone seems to get along.
Much like the rest of Orange County, Salt Creek has a rich history of change and development. In the early ’40s, the break was a raw, undeveloped park where surfers could literally drive up the beach, hop out of their cars and go surfing. There were no houses, no meters and no hotels. Twenty years later, the United States Surfing Association bought rights to the break and charged 75 cents a day for winter use. Members of the USSA could only bring one guest and had to deposit their money in a tin cup attached to a stick, extended over a fence by a caretaker. From there, Creek took a quantum leap in construction. There is now the multimillion-dollar Ritz Carlton Hotel ominously overlooking the beach, an exclusive apartment complex sitting next to the Ritz and an even ritzier St. Regis across the way. Throw in a massive golf course, pay parking, snack bar, grassy park and Starbucks, and you have a post-millennial Salt Creek.
Many say development has staunched proper sand flow from the now-extinct dunes, and that the bars aren’t close to what they once were. Despite this charge, Creek’s primary waves remain. At the most southern end of the beach is the Point. It’s a goofyfoot’s skatepark as far as left pointbreaks go: extremely rippable, extremely crowded and has an extremely small takeoff zone. The Point takes any south swell and on the largest days, it can reel across the bay producing 50-yard rides. Watch out for rocks on the inside at low tide. On small days during winter, it’s a superb fishing hole for boardfishing — but don’t tell anyone: it’s the only secret spot left on this stretch of beach.
Middles is usually where the rest of the pack ends up catching waves. Peaks crumble year-round from the outside and suck dry on the inside, creating ankle-snapping aerial sections on the right tide. During summer after 10 a.m., Middles is blackballed and Point is the only spot left open to surfers.
If you’re one of those surfers who enjoys pulling into deep closeout tubes and getting sand in all of your orifices, head north of Middles to the section in front of the golf course called Gravels. On west swells, Gravels is a showcase right-hand barrel. It peels in about 2 feet of water on any tide, and sometimes throws squarely into shore, like Sandy Beach shorebreak. Clearly not for the slow-to-the-feet or for someone who’s invested 700 bucks in a potato-chip shortboard.
Doheny:
Killer Dana is dead, and Doheny is its low-budget tombstone. Thirty years ago, a jetty and harbor transformed summer’s Orange County answer to Rincon (500-yard right-hand walls on big south swells) to a polluted children’s wave. Faithful old-timers still paddle out to catch its meager remnants, but they’re left pining for the past.
If you aren’t aware of what existed before it, Doheny is an ideal beginner’s wave. Swells slip past the swell-choking jetty, break softly over a bed of cobblestones and form into slow shoulders. A few hundred yards north, by the San Juan Creek, there’s a sandbar and reef that break better on stronger swells. During the winter of 1993 and the El Nino winter of 1998, perfect sandbars formed near the rivermouth and produced hollow freight-train rights. If you can withstand the sky-high fecal counts, it’s these types of bars that’ll quench the thirst for days past. Those days are all too rare, though, so Doheny, if anything, will serve as great place to introduce your child to his/her first wave.
For many years Doheny has been ranked at or near the top of lists of the most polluted beaches in southern California. Orange County Health Care Agency’s 2003 Ocean and Bay Water Quality Report indicates that Doheny had the most “Beach Mile Days” of water quality standards violations of any beach in Orange County. Heal the Bay’s 2003-2004 Beach Report Card listed Doheny as their #1 Beach Bummer, consistently earning “F” grades for water quality, especially during wet weather. Although a sewage treatment plant exists alongside San Juan Creek just up from the beach, this plant has had a good operating record in recent years. Doheny’s high bacteria counts are likely due to a combination of factors, including urban runoff from the 134 square mile San Juan Creek watershed, pollution from boats in Dana Point Harbor, large flocks of seagulls that poop in the creek water near the creek mouth, and poor water circulation at Doheny which has been a problem ever since Dana Point Harbor was constructed.
If you live or work in Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita or San Juan Capistrano, you could be part of the problem or part of the solution. Surfrider Foundation reminds you not to litter, to pick up after your dog, not to over-irrigate your lawn, don’t hose off your sidewalk or driveway, and take your car to a car wash rather than washing it at home. And stay out of the water at Doheny and at other surf spots near creek mouths and major storm drains for up to 72 hours after a rain.