Three Arch Bay: First Contact

I slept in until a little after 6:00 today. The sky looks as it has for the past few days: dark grey and generally gloomy. It’s the last day of a three day weekend and there’s a lot I want to do today. I’m not settled yet on what my swim plans are. I just can’t bring myself to swim another one of my standard Strands swims in this weather - at least not yet.

I decide to hit the gym, run through the harbor and then assess the weather and my mood and see where I want to swim. I’ve got a few routes cooking in my head: the usual Strands south bound swim, a swim beyond the south end of Strands and over to the cove that’s past the Ocean Institute, or Three Arch Bay again but this time starting at the end of Monarch Beach.

Those last two options sound the most potentially appealing. The surf is tiny so the shallows of the points are very doable. I’m leaning strongly towards the Three Arch Bay option since I was just there on Saturday and didn’t feel like I properly explored it. Someone showed me a picture of the bay from the 60’s or 70’s and you could see the three arches which I totally missed. I gotta go back, see the arches, see the beach, swim around that big rock and go just a bit beyond the next point to get a sweeping view of Laguna. Then there are these clouds and part of me considers just not swimming at all.

The run through the harbor and over the Dana Point Headlands is pretty great. However I notice hardly any change in cloud cover. Regardless of the lack of sun, the harbor and Baby Beach are hopping. A ton of people are in the water on their paddle boards and Baby Beach is pretty much at capacity. Once I reach Baby Beach I do notice the slightest change in light - as though someone bumped the saturation level. Still, no blue sky anywhere. As I run over the headlands, there are several boats and kayakers out in front of the point.

One thing I will say about the clouds, it’s better than this same day last year. I got a “memory” from Facebook from my September 2nd, 2023 post and the clouds were super dense. I also totally remember that swim because there were lots of Pelicans floating on the water - not a common sight.

Towards the end of my run, I have mostly decided to follow through on the Three Arch Bay swim. I have to get in the water and this is just the perfect day for that swim with the small surf and my wife and youngest son out and not needing me home. I am parked at Strands and I think I’ll drive to Salt Creek to be closer to Monarch.

When I get to my car I have a small moment of panic when I realize I left my swim trunks at home. It takes about five seconds to realize that running shorts will do just fine. I worry a bit that they will do ok holding my camera but I’m pretty sure they will.

The Salt Creek parking lot is kind of crazy. As beach parking lots go, Strands is among the best: tons of spaces even on a busy day though I have seen it full a couple times. Also, and this is so key, it is free. Salt creek is a smaller parking lot (but bigger beach) and it’s a dollar an hour. I purchase three hours thinking I probably just need two.

It’s been a long while since I have walked Salt Creek. I usually get here from the water. It’s a beautiful beach and there are lots of people here on this Labor day. I walk down the asphalt road to a smaller asphalt “trail” that runs along the inland edge of the beach. I’m actually running now. I want to get this swim done in time to get to the other things I want to do today.

I get off this trail and onto the beach down to the harder wet sand. I’m just south of the beach club. It’s cool to see the beach club so close for a change. I remember in the 80s when my high school cross country team would run down here all the time for practice runs and the beach club was, I think, just a community center. That makes me think: we had no idea how lucky we were to take our routine practice runs down on this beach. What other school can do that?

I run past the beach club to about fifty or a hundred feet shy of the end of the beach. There are some guys fishing at the end and I want to stay clear of their lines. The water is clear and lovely with a nice sandy bottom. Having been running in this warm air, the water feels so great and refreshing. Looking west onto the ocean, I think I see some possible blue sky opening. Do I? Maybe?

I swim straight out toward the end of the point. Right away it’s amazing here. The water visibility is great the whole way probably because of the relatively shallow water. I see some schools of fish that I don’t typically see and also lots that I do usually see. Primary take away: TONS of fish - large schools everywhere. There are rocks and kelp, browns, orange, purple, green. There are spots where there are just a couple feet of depth between the surface and the rocks and then it will suddenly open up into a 15 feet gorge with a sandy bottom.

This is incredible. Where is everybody? There is no one else here. It is like this all the way to the end of the point and if you are standing on the beach, it looks like a good long ways to the end of the point.

As I approach the end, there are a few isolated spots that are super shallow and small little waves break over these spots. Then there is a large reef like structure that is probably an extension of the rocky point itself. It creates a sort of barrier and rises a good 15 feet to just a couple feet shy of the surface. I swim over the crest where it becomes a steep drop off opening up to sandy bottom for as far as I can see. Large schools of fish swim right up along the edge of the face of the ledge which runs parallel to the end of the point.

This is a beautiful point. Between the Monarch and Three Arch sides, it’s about a fifty foot long wall of brown and bendy rock with pine spread out on the top. I hug the edge of this reef which keeps me just a few feet away from the end of the point. It’s funny as I remember my Saturday swim here where I kept a good distance from the point. I was kind of nervous of the rock but now it’s my best friend.

Oh. And there is bonafide sun coming from the north. Any stress that I had about getting things done today has slipped away along with time itself. There is no time here and there is all the time in the world.

I round the next corner and start heading into the bay and towards the beach. I feel like I am entering the evil lair of a James Bond villain. Are the people on this beach, and there are plenty, some kind of army of the coming apocalypse? Three Arch Bay: a private isolationist society unwelcoming of outside visitors. Maybe these people are like the lost tribes of the Amazon. I only hope they are not armed with poisoned darts. I’m going to try and keep a low profile.

Fantasies aside, this place is amazing. This is a very well kept secret of the southern Orange County coast line. I feel like this is one of the most beautiful beaches I have been to. The water is clear. The bottom is sandy white speckled with large mounds of rock that are super interesting to look at and swim around. The sun is shining in earnest now and lights up the bay.

The southern end is dark and shady from the cliff like rocky structures. The eastern beach is golden sand lined with cliffs full of green vegetation and it gives way in the center to a cluster of houses along the steep bluff. Above all of this one can see the brown and dry hills of Laguna Beach.

I intend to swim along the inshore edge and thought I would swim around that big rock I saw Saturday but now I see that the eastern end of the rock meets the shore, but one can walk around this end and through a narrow patch of sand onto another beach. It’s stunning to look at. I’m happy to take this walk because I guess I can’t say that I have truly experienced Three Arch Bay unless I have actually stepped foot on it.

There are three sort of windows in the rock that open to this other beach. These are the three arches. A lifeguard is sitting on a small lifeguard stand/tower and I chat with him for a bit. He is a Laguna Beach lifeguard and we talk about swimming. If you found this post, “Hi Joe.”

I look out onto the water from this insanely lovely beach and can see the rock formations below the clear water surface. How did I not know this place? Why am I only seeing it now? It’s like all my life I have been eating iceberg lettuce and only now discovering butter and red leaf. Or tasting home made Mac and Cheese with Lobster after a lifetime of Kraft.

Sadly I can’t stay forever, but I can’t think of a better way to leave than via the path I am about to take. I swim out to the point that is the northern edge of the rock that encases this little beach. I had imagined that beyond this it would open up onto the coast of Laguna. It kind of does but the point extends out quite a ways and I’m starting to feel the itch to get back. It seems like I may have been longer than I anticipated and I’m grateful I invested in the three hours of parking.

I can see quite a bit of Laguna coast line and it is beautiful. I see the hospital and the hotels and the next point which I think is the southern boundary of Aliso Beach. I turn around and plot a course directly back to Monarch point.

Back at the end of the point it is even more awesome than it was on the way in. There is much more sun now that shines into the water and the submerged rock and fish. There are now a few snorkelers here but only a few. On the one hand that’s great. I mean who wants a crowd that could potentially ruin this place. However I just wonder what these local fancy hotels have missed in their tourist literature. This is some of the best snorkeling scenery I have seen in California. If this were Hawaii, there would be a hundred people floating around here. The distance from Salt Creek beach is likely what keeps the crowds away but today I think as long as you can swim it is as safe as can be.

I turn the final corner. The current is in my favor and I swim along the rocks and small little beach that line the northern edge of Monarch Bay. It is all spectacular. Oh and the water is warm. It feels possibly warmer than yesterday or Saturday. Eventually I am just north of the beach club. I see a couple stingrays on the bottom and swim as far as reasonable until I literally hit the shore.

Wow. What a beautiful swim. I walk back along the beach but even though I am kind of in a hurry, I don’t run. One doesen’t drink a fine wine through a beer bong. This needs to be savored. With the sun and the water and the sand, I soak it all in.

There are several individuals I see snorkeling along the beach here. I know exactly what they are seeing because I am usually swimming there. I want to head out, grab them by the shoulders, point to the end of Monarch and emphatically urge them to go there.