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Nude Beaches/San Diego Area
Did I get everybody's attention? 
From the Washington Post online edition:
Flying High and Feeling Free in Calif.
Sunday, September 24, 2006; P04
WHAT: Black's Beach
WHERE: La Jolla, Calif., about 30 minutes north of downtown San Diego.
WHY GO: On a beautifully naked strip of California coastline, free spirits take flight.
Against the afternoon's clearing blue skies, a man paragliding flew close to the 300-foot cliffs that hem the two-mile stretch of Black's Beach, consistently regarded as one of the country's best destinations for nude sunbathers. Lauren, a beach regular in her fifties, looked up and wondered aloud if the man might crash into the cliffs.
I wondered if men on paragliders sometimes took the extravagant opportunity to get a better peek at the sunbathers below. I brought up that question as my eyes casually evaded Lauren's bare, freckled breasts.
"I don't think so," she said while squinting at the sky, watching the paraglider narrowly avoid the cliffs on its ascent toward the sun. "I think they have more important things to concentrate on."
The colorful air traffic hovering above Black's Beach is a pretty picture. Hang gliders and paragliders, sometimes a dozen at a time, enjoy using the rugged cliffs as a scenic launch pad; nudists like them because they hide the shoreline from a curious general public. It seems the physical commitment required to walk down the cliffs to the beach helps deter everyday spectators while offering nude sunbathers an air of privacy for their determinedly public display.
"If this was a drive-up beach, you would definitely get more gawkers," a young man named Carl told me while lying on his stomach.
"It doesn't stop all of them, though," joked his friend Zach, hinting at his suspicion of my clothed, roving presence.
It takes a little more than 10 minutes to get down to the beach, much of the journey demanding careful, well-soled footwork (steep paths, slippery dirt). Going back up takes 10 to 25 minutes, depending on one's respiratory health. Another footpath to the south is more time-consuming but less steep, which is why beachgoers carrying surfboards tend to use it. There are also no bathrooms, food stands or other businesses once you get to the bottom, which further illustrates the bare essentials of the beach's amenities.
"It's a beautiful beach, though," said Lauren, who has been coming to Black's Beach with her equally nude husband, Jim, for more than 25 years. "We encourage people not to come down," she said with a smile.
Actually, nudity is only tolerated here -- it's not officially sanctioned -- and you can practice it only on the beach's state-controlled northern end. You can still be cited for nudity at any time, but usually that happens only if you cause a disturbance and/or refuse to dress when asked. Nudity is prohibited on the city-regulated southern strip.
But the beach draws a more interesting line in the sand. On the state-regulated side, straight couples and families usually sunbathe on the south end, while gay men have the run of the north end. Net posts for a volleyball game can be found somewhere along the DMZ.
"There was this gay baseball team who lost in a tournament out in El Cajon -- they showed up and so we had some drop-in games with them," Lauren said of a recent volleyball showdown. "They were really good! Perhaps they were riled up about losing the baseball game earlier."
On the gay side, Richard and his partner, Jack, were wrapping prosciutto over pieces of melon when I met them. They said they sometimes like to picnic on the straight side because more people tend to sunbathe nude there, which makes the couple feel more at home. Jack estimated 80 percent nudity among straights and 50 percent among gay men.
July and August are the beach's busiest months, though nothing, said Lauren and Jim, compares to the crowds they saw in the late 1970s and early '80s, when it was packed even on weekdays.
Jim quietly looked off into the waves -- a moment, perhaps, of seeing long-lost silhouettes frolicking again beneath a gold-red sky. "Now," he said, "it's nothing how it used to be."
On my final walk along the shore, I decided to leave my own footprints in the sand's history. I dropped my backpack on a fairly open stretch of the beach, far away from the people I spoke to that day, and pulled down my shorts before I took off my shirt. With my hands on my hips, I stood there for a moment looking at the ocean. I expected to feel the wind and the sunlight differently, as if every inch of my skin and soul had been cleanshaven. I expected an awakening.
As I waited, a clothed older couple stared at me as they walked by. I gave them a half-hearted, slightly annoyed smile. (Gawkers!) Eventually I folded my arms in front, astonished at how unremarkable being naked was.
I shrugged my shoulders, spread my towel over the sand and, just as I was pulling out a couple of magazines from my backpack, a man on a red hang glider zoomed above me -- making flying, too, look like the most natural thing a person could do.
-- Tommy Nguyen
Black's Beach, also called Torrey Pines State Beach, lies near the northwest shoulder of the University of California at San Diego campus, off Torrey Pines Scenic Drive. Look for the gliderport sign. Free parking.
From the Washington Post online edition:
Flying High and Feeling Free in Calif.
Sunday, September 24, 2006; P04
WHAT: Black's Beach
WHERE: La Jolla, Calif., about 30 minutes north of downtown San Diego.
WHY GO: On a beautifully naked strip of California coastline, free spirits take flight.
Against the afternoon's clearing blue skies, a man paragliding flew close to the 300-foot cliffs that hem the two-mile stretch of Black's Beach, consistently regarded as one of the country's best destinations for nude sunbathers. Lauren, a beach regular in her fifties, looked up and wondered aloud if the man might crash into the cliffs.
I wondered if men on paragliders sometimes took the extravagant opportunity to get a better peek at the sunbathers below. I brought up that question as my eyes casually evaded Lauren's bare, freckled breasts.
"I don't think so," she said while squinting at the sky, watching the paraglider narrowly avoid the cliffs on its ascent toward the sun. "I think they have more important things to concentrate on."
The colorful air traffic hovering above Black's Beach is a pretty picture. Hang gliders and paragliders, sometimes a dozen at a time, enjoy using the rugged cliffs as a scenic launch pad; nudists like them because they hide the shoreline from a curious general public. It seems the physical commitment required to walk down the cliffs to the beach helps deter everyday spectators while offering nude sunbathers an air of privacy for their determinedly public display.
"If this was a drive-up beach, you would definitely get more gawkers," a young man named Carl told me while lying on his stomach.
"It doesn't stop all of them, though," joked his friend Zach, hinting at his suspicion of my clothed, roving presence.
It takes a little more than 10 minutes to get down to the beach, much of the journey demanding careful, well-soled footwork (steep paths, slippery dirt). Going back up takes 10 to 25 minutes, depending on one's respiratory health. Another footpath to the south is more time-consuming but less steep, which is why beachgoers carrying surfboards tend to use it. There are also no bathrooms, food stands or other businesses once you get to the bottom, which further illustrates the bare essentials of the beach's amenities.
"It's a beautiful beach, though," said Lauren, who has been coming to Black's Beach with her equally nude husband, Jim, for more than 25 years. "We encourage people not to come down," she said with a smile.
Actually, nudity is only tolerated here -- it's not officially sanctioned -- and you can practice it only on the beach's state-controlled northern end. You can still be cited for nudity at any time, but usually that happens only if you cause a disturbance and/or refuse to dress when asked. Nudity is prohibited on the city-regulated southern strip.
But the beach draws a more interesting line in the sand. On the state-regulated side, straight couples and families usually sunbathe on the south end, while gay men have the run of the north end. Net posts for a volleyball game can be found somewhere along the DMZ.
"There was this gay baseball team who lost in a tournament out in El Cajon -- they showed up and so we had some drop-in games with them," Lauren said of a recent volleyball showdown. "They were really good! Perhaps they were riled up about losing the baseball game earlier."
On the gay side, Richard and his partner, Jack, were wrapping prosciutto over pieces of melon when I met them. They said they sometimes like to picnic on the straight side because more people tend to sunbathe nude there, which makes the couple feel more at home. Jack estimated 80 percent nudity among straights and 50 percent among gay men.
July and August are the beach's busiest months, though nothing, said Lauren and Jim, compares to the crowds they saw in the late 1970s and early '80s, when it was packed even on weekdays.
Jim quietly looked off into the waves -- a moment, perhaps, of seeing long-lost silhouettes frolicking again beneath a gold-red sky. "Now," he said, "it's nothing how it used to be."
On my final walk along the shore, I decided to leave my own footprints in the sand's history. I dropped my backpack on a fairly open stretch of the beach, far away from the people I spoke to that day, and pulled down my shorts before I took off my shirt. With my hands on my hips, I stood there for a moment looking at the ocean. I expected to feel the wind and the sunlight differently, as if every inch of my skin and soul had been cleanshaven. I expected an awakening.
As I waited, a clothed older couple stared at me as they walked by. I gave them a half-hearted, slightly annoyed smile. (Gawkers!) Eventually I folded my arms in front, astonished at how unremarkable being naked was.
I shrugged my shoulders, spread my towel over the sand and, just as I was pulling out a couple of magazines from my backpack, a man on a red hang glider zoomed above me -- making flying, too, look like the most natural thing a person could do.
-- Tommy Nguyen
Black's Beach, also called Torrey Pines State Beach, lies near the northwest shoulder of the University of California at San Diego campus, off Torrey Pines Scenic Drive. Look for the gliderport sign. Free parking.
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