Winter at the Beach

When it’s not pouring down rain, the beach in winter is a great, inexpensive adventure. It’s relatively uncrowded, the air is pure and the ocean’s roar can eventually drown out the importance of just about everything else.

Faria Beach and Hobson Beach, up on the Rincon north of Ventura, are the sites of county parks as scenic as they are convenient.

Go north from Ventura on Highway 101 and take the first offramp, the one that promises state beaches. Go north past the entrance to Emma Wood beach to where the coastline curves to the left at Solimar Beach, then into the Faria Colony, population 250. The park is just north of that ritzy enclave.

Manuel del Terra Faria, a grateful naturalized American citizen who immigrated from the Azores, donated the park to the county in 1915.

Faria Beach is a smallish park of less than three acres with room enough for just 42 campsites.

There is also first-come, first-served free parking for any finheads out to catch a few waves. Others must park on the street outside the park.

Faria Beach is separated from the Pacific Coast Highway by a row of myoporum trees, which are not much to look at but they’ll grow anywhere with little care.

The park features the requisite line of palm trees planted in the center of the site, plus a few pines. Right now, the only color besides the blue Pacific and the brown dirt is provided by a few healthy pink-and-purple flowered lavateras, a welcome relative of the invasive mallow.

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Day use is free, but it costs $22 bucks a night to camp at Faria, $35 with hookups. The rules are a maximum of six people per site, one recreation vehicle and one car.

There’s a 30-day consecutive limit between Nov. 1 and March 31 and a 14-day limit the rest of the year.

On a recent clear winter day, the surf was a perfectly shaped three to five feet and the water was crowded with surfers, with others on the shore calculating their odds of catching a wave.

Less adventurous campers sat under the awnings of their motor homes, reading paperbacks and wearing big coats.

Picnic tables are near the jetty that separates the Pacific from dry land. The tables are rubberized, which prevents them from eroding or rusting quickly--the fate of just about everything near the beach, with all that salt air.

There are also plenty of barbecue pits and a low-budget playground, consisting of a single slide under some giant pine trees.

Amenities are few. There’s an outdoor shower that costs a quarter, a snack bar that sells lots of breakfast burritos, a bathroom and a couple of newspaper racks.

Richard Shaw is the park host as well as chief cook and bottle washer at the snack bar. After several years, he knows the drill.

“Everybody likes it here,” Shaw said. “Personally, I liked it a lot better when I was camping here and didn’t have to work. This place was full on 20 consecutive weekends last year, so you must have reservations. A lot of the people who come here are regulars. They come from all over, but a lot of them are locals.”

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In addition to all the two-legged surfers, a group of black dolphins frequents the area and often gives free bodysurfing demonstrations. And pretty soon, the gray whales will be cruising through the channel; they can be seen easily from the shoreline at Faria Beach.

North 2 1/2 miles is Hobson Beach, with 31 spaces and a snack bar. Hobson is smaller than Faria at just under two acres and is more open with fewer trees.

It too was donated to the county in 1915 and is named to honor the descendants of William Dewey Hobson, a man who was instrumental in passing legislation that made Ventura a county in 1872.

At the Hobson Park Grill, the surf report is written on the chalkboard for those too lazy to turn their heads.

Like Faria, reservations are necessary at Hobson, but only until April when it becomes a first-come, first-served park. Prices are $22 a night, $30 with hookups.

All in all, one can spend a perfect day up on the Rincon with waves, sun and the islands in the background. And those winter sundowns can’t be beat.

DETAILS

Faria County Park, 4350 W. Pacific Coast Highway; and Hobson County Park, 5210 W. Pacific Coast Highway. North of Ventura. Open daily. CALL: 654-3951.