Seal Beach
Seal Beach (Orange County) · near Seal Beach · Los Angeles / SoCal
Surfing
At a glance
- Skill level
- intermediate
- Best season
- Fall and winter — Seal Beach turns on when NW swells arrive
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Surfing detail
- Break types
- beach
- Swell
- NW and W · 2–7ft · Catches winter swell that other OC spots miss
- Tide
- Works across tides
- Wind
- Morning offshore best
- Crowd
- Mellow, local, less crowded than the marquee OC spots. Consistent winter wave.
- Board
- Shortboard, fish, or longboard
- Wetsuit
- 3/2mm most of the year · 4/3mm mid-winter · Water 58–66°F
- Intl tip
- Seal Beach's Main Street is one of the more charming, unpretentious beach-town strips in Orange County. The pier is the second-longest wooden pier in California. A quieter alternative to the Huntington Beach scene 15 minutes south.
The guide
Seal Beach is a mellow, local-feeling Orange County town break by the pier that comes alive in fall and winter, when NW swells …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Seal Beach — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.7414, -118.1048