El Porto Beach

Great for surfing. Gets a little crowded in the mornings and weekends. 30^th was decent today.

Not the best beach and not the worst. It was pretty narrow beachfront with a lot of locals meandering around with dogs or kids in tow, although, DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED! Signage everywhere threatens fines.

clean and quiet beach for the family
with valley ball nets
good surfs
meter parking
food stand-​surf food stand

I love El Porto Beach! My BF and I usually come to El Porto as our starting point for our runs and bike rides along the Strand, or simply just to lay out and enjoy the sun or the sunset. I love that El Porto is less busy and commercialized than the other surrounding beaches. There is a snack stand here that has a variety of food, although it’s not my favorite or first choice place to grab food, it’s definitely convenient if you’re on the beach and don’t want to go far for food. There is a big parking lot along this beach that is usually crowded and it closes at 8pm, or you can try your luck at street parking, which is tough.

A very private beach; great place to go for a run. Or bring a friend and your bike!

Entry on 45^th street
limited metered parking
a zoo on weekends
If you live inland and are looking for a nice beach to go to, go to Manhattan Beach, since during the Summer surfers and volleyball players get to Porto early and take up all the lot parking and street parking on the weekends. During the week you can easily find a parking spot but dawn patrollers take the first ²⁄₃ of the lot, and are usually gone by 9AM.
There are a few surf schools that operate at El Porto since there is a long sandbar that goes out and is idea for learning in the whitewater, but outside of beginner lessons, Porto is not a great novice spot due to currents, tides, and wave heights. On a big day if you can even paddle out as a beginner, the paddling back through the impact zone is dangerous or you might get stuck in a riptide. If you are a beginner go to Sapphires, RAT, or Burnout.
If you are looking for volleyball courts, they are easier to come by during the winter when there are no volleyball camps or CVBA tournaments. Even during the week, people grab the courts early and hang out, and there are always one or two courts that have jacked up nets. The sand is also sooty at Porto so your feet will be black after a few games.
If you want to chill on the beach, there is a lot of sand to lay out on.

Such a nice beach! Came here Saturday 10am for a beach clean up. Not much to pick up. It was easy to find and easily accessible.
Seems I came around a good time to find parking. There was about a ¹⁰⁄₁₅ minute wait to get to lot since people would wait for a spot to open up. But it worked in my favor bc I didn’t have to drive around and found a spot first time I drove through lot. All of the spots are metered though (hard to find free parking near any beach). Someone who I met with came about 10:15 am and it took her more than 30 minutes to get parking though. So try to time before family crowd but after surf crowd?
The lot is super close to the beach. There’s a nice bike trail for runners. Wouldn’t mind coming back here for some fun! Surprisingly the beach wasn’t crowded at all!

Parking there lately has been a hit and miss. Often times there has been traffic officers blocking the entrance to the parking spaces. Luckily there’s a lot you can park in on Redondo beach bl., and take a short walk down the hill, coming back up the hill isn’t so much fun though, it’s pretty steep.
P. s. Please help keep our beaches clean :)

Absolutely love it here. Plenty of parking, great place to surf, not crowded. Very short walk from the car to the beach. Pretty drive also.

Another short one.
Nice little beach spot. Lots of surfers :) Metered parking — can get a lil bit hectic during the popular times & holidays, it’s one way in & one way out, so for those impatient blankety blanks w/​physical tics tapping their car horns abusively– play nice & exercise some courtesy (George Costanza’s Dad ~Tranquility Now, tranquility now!~)
**RIP Anne Meara (Jerry Stiller’s wife/Ben’s Mom) I just realized I wrote that last sentence couple days shy from news of her passing. All great comedic geniuses.
Back to the review…
Pet owners that visit: Please pick up your doggies business, don’t like much seeing smothered… you know Eww!
That’s all I’m saying, SSSSSHHHH!!! don’t want to make it sound too appealing!

Nice beach what I really like about this beach is the parking is so close to the beach itself making really easy to carry all your beach nonsense there and back but it can be a pain it’s only one lane and you have to wait for someone to get out and in my case i had this impatient jerk honking behind us as we waited for a spot usually I’m not the kind of person that likes to wait for peoples spot but this lady was out in less than a minute and the jack ass behind me was still going horn crazy so this place attracts a bit of ghetto people I guess or I was just unfortanate to encounter the one that did show up that day.
Also the view is not the best ships in the back ground– a bit industrial, not my thing I like like to look out and see nothing but water clouds and sun.
Lots of surfers, Extremely cold water (too cold if you ask me) almost unbarably cold the kind you just don’t get used to.
I’d give it 3.5 stars

Nice big parking lot here, I often come here after work and even in the summer time have been able to find a spot. The meters take credit cards as well as coins which is super convenient. There are a couple restrooms and during the daytime even a little café to grab a bite.

Great place to surf or watch the sunset. Quarters parking lot. Bike path.

Nice sand, clean beach! I’m down.
Parking can get hectic.
Come early, if you’re heading here.

What’s not to love about all the HAWT surfers that hangout here?
Been coming here for years to surf and hangout with friends who lives on the strand, well and to gawk at all the HAWT people that surfs, runs and skate here. Aside from the group of sharks who resides in this area, the water is relatively safe. The waves are consistently mediocre and walled up on bigger days but you can always stare at the hottie next to you in the lineup.
I also love that there are fresh water outdoor showers here to rinse off. Parking is always a nightmare all times of the day and week.

Easy going, easy-​to-​get-​to beach.
Stopped by with a few guys to get back into surfing. Relaxed crowd (not many people at all really) on a Saturday in summer. No real attitude on in the water, but then again the break wasn’t all that good.
Only major complaint — Out in the water there was a pretty disgusting yellow/​green foam all day. Not typical backwash or anything like that. And it hasn’t been raining anytime recently so there’s no («good») reason for this. No evidence of an algae bloom either. Left us half-​joking about what we were actually surfing in. If I grow a third arm, I’ll update my post…

Stopped El porto after an errand. The waves were pumping and finding parking was a breeze! Cant wait to get my new board and give this break a shot!

Lots of metered parking, places to lock your bike, area to relieve your bladder, vending machine for water, outdoor «café» when an event is going on such as surfing heats. I’ve cycled past, through, & stopped here about 8 times now at 0600, 0730, 1730, & on a lazy afternoon @ 1300. The am and pm times tons of surfers dotting the waters & crossing the bike paths. In the AM, older guys probably with knee replacements (they stand by their cars, coffee in hand, squinting or reminiscing) are watching the waves & surfers create poetry.
Sand/​beach is clean. 2 homeless guys like to use these facilities & cook with their hotpot & collect things to put on their bikes. I’ve crossed their paths early in am and at 8pm or so. They seem to be in good spirits & are chatty with eachother. Who wouldn’t be smiling living on the beachfront?
You can run about 3 miles to Manhattan beach pier and play with starfish in the «touch me» tide pool in the aquarium at the end of the pier.

I love this beach!
1. It’s quiet, even when it’s crowded.
2. It’s free
3. Parking is close to the beach
4. You can watch the surfers easily
5. Nice, large, clean bathroom is close-​by
5. You get a nice view of the nice houses too!
6. It’s clean
7. No picnicers. Please don’t start coming and ruin this place. LOL!

This is an update in hopes that someone who visits this Beach will read this. As I local I woke up on Wednesday (05-​09-​2012) morning and was totally stoked to go to El Porto and Surf. I woke up got my stuff ready and rolled to the Beach.
I arrived at the Beach and started the walk from my car to the water’s edge with my board. I was absolutely shocked by the amount of garbage in the form of candy wrappers, plastic bottles, car parts (yes car parts), plastic bags, balloons and other forms of garbage everywhere. What was so distressing is that this garbage was all the way up by the bike path meaning it could not have been washed ashore by the tide. I put my surfboard down and walked around picking up garbage instead of surfing.
I finally paddled out into the water only to discover more garbage floating around. What did that garbage do? Well there were pockets of 10’s of thousands of dead sand crabs everywhere as far as the eye could see floating on top of the water. I tried gathering up more garbage and got out of the water to only pick up more garbage on my way to the showers. To the other surfers walking past garbage on the Beach, who do you think is going to clean it up? If you surf here why do you not pick up garbage to and from the water?
As for the visitors coming here PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF. They should charge everyone $ 20 to gain access to the Beach. When you pay that fee you are given a trash bag. If at the end of the day that trash bag is filled up you get your $ 20 dollars back, I think that would be one heck of an incentive to clean up after yourself.
We call this place home, we surf here, we are here when the weather is cold and you are not. So as a visitor make sure you leave nothing behind. The Sea life calls the Ocean home and they depend on us to live and we are killing them. I guess it boils down to what we don’t see we don’t care about and this is sad. Please think about this everything you throw any item out of your car window. I am absolutely disgusted with the visitors who come to this Beach and treat it like their backyard which is probably totally filled with garbage. There is a reason YOU can’t afford to live by the Beach so do us WHO CAN a favor and stay away if you are not going to clean up after yourself.
It is not the fault of the Beach for being dirty it is your fault for it being dirty.