Moonlight Beach
In the early days of Encinitas, women would carry laundry down to Cottonwood Creek, wash it by hand, spread it on the rocks, and then wait — and while they waited, they fed their families in the coastal sun. During low tide, a Model T could drive north all the way to Oceanside along the hard-packed sand. That was Moonlight Beach before it became Moonlight Beach. The name came later. The community built around it came later still. What has not changed is the quality of the light in the late afternoon, the sound of the Pacific, and the feeling that this particular strip of San Diego County coastline has always belonged, in some essential way, to the people who live near it.
Sand and Surf
Moonlight State Beach sits in Encinitas, reached by following Encinitas Boulevard west from Highway 101 to B Street. It is one of the most visited beaches in the city — a broad, sandy cove backed by low bluffs, protected enough for swimming, exposed enough for the swells that make it a reliable surf spot. Surfing, surf fishing, swimming, beach volleyball, and bonfires all happen here simultaneously on summer weekends, the usual beautiful chaos of a California public beach.
The beach attracts both locals and visitors, but it has never become the kind of beach that feels managed for tourism. The lifeguard towers are staffed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in summer. Fire rings line the upper beach. Rentals for surfboards and boogie boards are available seasonally. Dogs, alcohol, and glass are not permitted, which keeps the atmosphere more park than party.
The Volleyball Legacy
Since the early 1950s, two-person volleyball has been played at Moonlight Beach — a fact that sounds unremarkable until you understand how seriously this corner of coastal California takes beach volleyball. The original single court in the middle of the beach has since grown to three courts at the north end. Every October since 1964, a Mixed Doubles Volleyball Tournament has drawn top players from the national circuit. World-ranked competitors have used Moonlight's courts for training, and the beach has contributed in its quiet way to Southern California's reputation as the place where the sport first became a professional game.
Water, Clean and Otherwise
Cottonwood Creek runs through a small nature reserve at the north edge of the beach before emptying into the ocean. For years that creek was the beach's biggest problem: dry-season urban runoff carrying bacteria from the inland neighborhoods, triggering water quality warnings after rain. In 2002, Moonlight earned a 'D' from Heal the Bay, the nonprofit that monitors California coastal water quality.
The city addressed the problem with a UV treatment facility on B Street at 2nd Street, systematically cleaning the urban runoff before it reached the sand. From April 2005 through March 2007, the beach earned five A grades and one B from Heal the Bay. The creek is still there, still creating a small lagoon where it meets the sand — but it is cleaner, and the beach reflects that work.
Annual Rituals
Moonlight Beach hosts two events that have grown into community institutions. Each summer, the alternative rock band Switchfoot — whose lead duo, the Foreman brothers, learned to surf at Moonlight — returns for the 'Bro-Am,' a charity surf contest and beach party that has evolved into a two-day festival of music, competition, and ocean conservation fundraising.
On the third Saturday of September, the Wavecrest gathering brings vintage wood-paneled cars — 'woodies' — to the beach. These vehicles, with their wood-trimmed rear bodywork, are totems of mid-century California surf culture, and seeing them lined up above the Pacific connects the beach's present crowd to the era when Moonlight was just a beautiful strip of coast where somebody's grandmother was drying laundry on a rock.
From the Air
Moonlight Beach sits at 33.05°N, 117.30°W in Encinitas, California. Visible from the air as a distinctive sandy cove where Cottonwood Creek meets the Pacific. The beach parking area and bluff-top access are recognizable from altitude. Nearest airports: McClellan-Palomar (CLD) is approximately 8 miles north; San Diego Lindbergh Field (SAN) is 22 miles south. Best viewed mid-morning before marine layer burns off.