.A Privates Beach Hike at High Tide

I drive toward the ocean on 41st Avenue and pass Betty Burgers. Why did I drive past Betty Burgers? What was I thinking? Imagine taking a beach hike and in the middle of it you get to eat a mesquite burger.

Betty says she originally learned the recipe in the Texas panhandle from the man who raised her, named Dutch. Dutch reportedly had two talents: his burger recipe and the ability to ride a Harley “like a greased hog.” At 16, Betty headed to the California coast in a vain attempt to find her mother. She did find surfer boys; one called her “Bridget Gone Bad.” She arrived here with nothing but Dutch’s recipe and now we have three Betty Burgers in Santa Cruz and one in Aptos.

I could be taking one to Privates Beach, where I know the salt air will make me hungry. What was I thinking?

I drive down 41st Avenue toward Pleasure Point, turn left on Opal Cliff Drive and park near Opal Cliffs Park.

For years I was amused by the name Privates Beach, thinking that I alone was thinking of a genital exposure meaning. Then I learned that what it says is exactly what it is; it got its name because the beach is considered clothing optional and frequented by local naturalists. Santa Cruz never ceases to test my prudish upbringing.

Considered a local secret, this odd little secluded beach is now open to the general public because the battle over public access at Privates Beach in Santa Cruz is over. 

Aye, me laddies, down at the Opal Cliffs Recreation District, ye built a nine-foot gate and made people pay $100 for the key. Ye should have used the clothing-optional feature of the beach to show people you’re nuts…your ban on jockstraps had no support. 

Privates under lock and key is how you describe a chastity belt. That is how the Victorian ruling class would keep their mistresses “pristine” until they wanted to use them. The California Coastal Commission had an ultimatum for the Opal Cliffs Recreation District: take off the chastity belt. The new Coastal Development Permit for Privates Beach includes a retractable gate with a 6-foot-wide open entry space into the park. The gate is open during the day, sunrise to sundown, and is free to the public year-round. You can even bring your dog.

It’s a great beach for surfers and dogs, I hear there is a great surf break here, but for hikers it is about timing the low tide. At low tide you can get around the breaks and hike the shoreline, but even then, you may have to search for working stable staircases. There are several damaged staircases that are not in use, and you must pay attention to the tide. If you’re walking the beach and the tide comes in, your final option to get back to Privates Beach might turn out to be a swim.

I walk down the steep stairway, with steps that are scary even using the handrail. This is not wheelchair access. From the platform at the bottom of the stairs I carefully crawl down the rocky ledge to more rocks leading to the cement slab where families sunbathe. My photos today show it at high tide and the only person I meet at Privates who did not use the stairs is Wendy Tryde, whom I meet just as she finishes her one-mile swim from Rockview County Park at Pleasure Point. She tells me she does this every day, and trains to one day make it all the way to the Capitola Wharf, over a mile and a half.

This is a great place to reflect on rising sea levels and the future of our beaches in Santa Cruz. Says Dr. David Revell, a local coastal geomorphologist with more than 25 years of experience working to integrate science and management of climate change, “We’re not going to lose beaches unless people do something stupid to stop beaches from existing.”

Dr. Revell remembers 20 years ago walking down the 26th Avenue Beach and says he could walk to Moran Lake no matter the height of the tide. Today he says he can barely do that at low tide. “We have buried that beach under rocks, which has changed the way we can be as humans. That’s the kind of choices we must struggle with when we choose how to adapt. For a beach to exist, you have to have passive erosion. Passive.” 

The Santa Cruz Climate Action Network predicts 6 feet rise in sea level for Santa Cruz sometime this century that could flood Santa Cruz at high tide. Santa Cruz historian Ross Gibson says that in 1905 there was a plan to turn Santa Cruz into a version of Venice, canals and all. In the 21st century, rising sea levels coupled with an angry Pacific Ocean could bring that plan home and give jobs to hundreds of our ukulele players performing on the backs of gondolas that pole through the canals of Santa Cruz.

How high’s the water, Mama?
Two feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, Papa?
She said it’s two feet high and risin’

We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That’s the only thing we got left that’ll float
It’s already over all the wheat and the oats
Two feet high and risin’.

—Five Feet High and Rising, Johnny Cash