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Western Shoreline
Western Shoreline
The western shoreline of the Palos Verdes Peninsula holds much of the undeveloped area of the Peninsula. In 1969, the shoreline within the boundaries of the City of Palos Verdes Estates was established as the Palos Verdes Estates Shoreline Preserve to comply with a 1963 Tidelands grant requiring coastal cities to improve, restore or preserve their tidelands.
The City of Rancho Palos Verdes maintains the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve of approximately 1500 acres spread across 15 individual Reserves. The Portuguese Bend Reserve along the shore comprises 424 acres is the largest Reserve. The Preserve is co-managed with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy for ecological value and habitat restoration.
In March 1961, we awoke to find that a Greek freighter named the Dominator had crashed on the reef at Rocky Point. Some time later, a salvage barge that had been attached to the ship broke free during a storm and washed onto the rocks at Lunada Bay. The next morning, we climbed down the cliff and threw a large wooden plank across to the deck and went aboard. There was still food and other personal items onboard, so we pretended to be pirates who had captured and looted an enemy ship.
'This photo of the shipwrecked Dominator was taken by my husband Mitchell Gordon.' (Donated at Your Story is the Peninsula's Story scanning event February 20, 2016, Peninsula Center Library, Rolling Hills Estates, CA.)
There was always something comforting about hearing the sound of the fog horn from the Point Vicente Lighthouse. When I laid in bed at night I would open my window and watch the fog drift into my room. The deep, long muted horn could be heard for miles away and it brought a sense of peace as I lay there.
Point Vicente Lighthouse, Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Image shows view looking south west at the 67-foot-high Point Vicente Lighthouse, which opened in 1926 atop the 130 cliff of Point Vicente, named in 1790 by English explorer Captain George Vancouver for his friend, Padre Vicente de Santa Maria of the Mission San Buenaventura in Ventura, CA. Catalina Island is visible in the distance. The lighthouse utilizes a five-hunderd-watt lamp with a third order clamshell Fresnel lens, manufactured in 1886 in Paris, France by Barbier, Bernard and Turenne, the oldest lens making company in the world. Point Vicente was manned by civilian lighthouse keepers until 1939, when the U.S. Coast Guard became responsible for its maintenance and operation. Producing two white flashes every twenty seconds visible at a distance of 20 miles, the lighthouse was manned until 1971, when it became automated. Point Vicente Lighthouse was added to the National Registry of Historic Sites on November 17, 1979.
At certain times of the year a light fog will move in off the shoreline and surround the area you are standing in. In moments the vast ocean disappears leaving a feeling as if you have been transported to some timeless place hidden from the outside world.
Christmas Tree Cove, Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Image shows elevated view looking south across Christmas Tree Cove toward the Point Vicente Lighthouse, visible in distance. Resort Point, the southern point of Lunada Bay, is visible in foreground.
On weekends my friends and I would ride our bikes from Lunada Bay to Marineland. Along the way we would stop at the chainlink fence and check out the lighthouse. We would hear the sound of rifle shots from the nearby military shooting range where the current Interpretive Center is now located. When the air was clear and dry we could see the outlines of foliage on Catalina Island.
Black and white postcard with image of two people on Crenshaw Boulevard looking towards Marineland of the Pacific and Catalina Island in the distance. Postcard printed on front with "Marineland of the Pacific from the new Crenshaw Blvd. Santa Catalina Island looms in the distance. MARINELAND, CALIFORNIA. (© Bill Eccles Photo) L-1"
