El Porto

Surf Guide

With more personalities than Sibyl, El Porto has maintained its reputation more due to easy parking than any outstanding wave quality. El Porto's a northwest swell magnet, however, and is almost always bigger than any other spot in the South Bay during the winter months. The trick is to find the zone with the "holes," as the locals call it, referring to breaks in the relentless closeouts up and down the beach. With spring sandbars or a crossed swell, the place can get real good, except that everyone's on it before you can feed your meter. In past years, the area has taken hits from "beach nourishment" programs, wherein tons of sand were trucked in, turning the area into the Great Wall of China. There is also terrible water quality, some say because of years of hydrocarbons leaching through the sand from the nearby Chevron refinery. The place does, at times, get machine-like, at least where the smell is concerned.