Except for three surfers, a half-mile out by the point, I have the place to myself. On this unnamed beach somewhere between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, the sea cliff to my back barricades the sands and me from the rest of the continent. And to the north along Highway One stretch some of the most pristine, deserted beaches of the California coast. Within the city limits are probably a dozen good beaches - broad ones with volleyball nets, rocky coves, beaches for teens and beaches for sunbathers, and at least two world-class surfing beaches, Pleasure Point and Steamer Lane. On the higher ground above the river's floodplain sits a settled residential community, stucco and tile-roofed California bungalows between tall Victorians crowned with widow's walks.

Its small older hotels have neon deco signs and names like The Sand and Sea and The Magic Carpet. It has a pleasant, sun-warped appearance. Santa Cruz is a surfing town and a college town. So Santa Cruz is warm, and though it is only two hours from chilly San Francisco, it feels hours farther south, with its palms and its surfers, its crowded beaches and its boardwalk. The coastal mountains inland and the broad harbor of Monterey Bay protect the town from the wind and the open ocean. I follow the surfers' vans south down the coast, for a day at some secret beach along Highway One, or for a weekend at Santa Cruz - a real beach town with good waves and a roller coaster.ДЄt Santa Cruz, the West Coast manages to face the sunny south.

So I still manage, in the Eastern manner, to find a beach about two hours away - to make the ocean a real destination. This has always seemed a little unreal to me, as a transplanted Washingtonian, having the ocean so close to the city that you smell the salt as you go to do your laundry. On clear days, the Pacific winks at you from the ends of the avenues on the west side of San Francisco.

Torchlight inn santa cruz