White Point / Royal Palms
Paseo del Mar, San Pedro · near San Pedro · Los Angeles / SoCal
Tidepooling
At a glance
- Fee
- County pay lot at beach level (~$2-3/hr) or free street + stairs
- Season
- Year-round · THE open Palos Verdes-area pools while Abalone Cove is closed
What is here
- Species
- Anemones · Sea hares · Octopus (occasional) · Historic hot-spring ruins
- Highlights
- The Reef Shelves · Hot-Spring Ruins
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
- Gear
- Grippy shoes — cobbled reef · Small bills for the county lot · Sun layer · Curiosity for the ruins
Tidepooling detail
- Nickname
- San Pedro's Open Reef
- Pool type
- reef-shelf
- Program
- self-guided
- Mpa
- CDFW tidepool protections (Abalone Cove SMCA begins west)
- Best tide
- Below 0.0 ft; shelves run both directions from the palm grove
- Docent note
- Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (nearby) leads public tidepool walks at Cabrillo Beach
- Intl tip
- The reliable Palos Verdes-area pools while Abalone Cove remains closed. Drive down to the county lot or stair-walk from free street parking. Pair with Point Fermin lighthouse and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (free, donation) 10 min east.
The guide
White Point / Royal Palms is San Pedro's workhorse reef — and, with the Portuguese Bend landslide keeping Abalone Cove's trails…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to White Point / Royal Palms — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.7156, -118.3196