Every beach town has it's hub. Whether it's Main Beach in Laguna, Windansea in La Jolla, or Waikiki in Honolulu, there's a place for the local crew to hang with their families, get a quick surf in, or just meet up with friends. In Encinitas, that place is Moonlight Beach. Sure there's great gathering places like Beacons, Cardiff, and Swami's, but the center of town happens to be Moonlight.
Unfortunately the surf down there only gets good once in a blue moon (sorry, bad pun) but occasionally there's a little wave to be had (like the shot above from January 7th, 2003- wow- has it really been 9 1/2 years since there was surf down there?!). The real appeal is the big sandy beach, concession stands, park for the kids, panoramic views from the various bluffside viewing areas, and laid back atmosphere.
As you've probably heard, there's quite the construction going down on the little beach these past few months. The North County Surf blog
reported back in August about the makeover about to take place to update the lifeguard tower, add new concession stands, a bike/surfboard rental area, new garage for the lifeguard vehicles and lookout point above.
Well the work is well under way and the beach is almost unrecognizable. Fortunately we're headed into winter and the beach isn't being used anyway. The kiddie park though is still intact- just need to find a way to get to it with all the construction fences up. Good news is that the new projects should be up and running by summer time.
And with the weather slated to be 80 this weekend, heading to the beach sounds like a good idea. Unless of course you want to go to Moonlight. In the midst of the new buildings being built, there's also a sand replenishment project happening.
Check out the North County Surf blog story here. The good news is that all that sand should make for some good sandbars once we get a little surf to stir things up. Just need some surf of course. Don't fret if you don't live in Encinitas- the sand replenishment project is happening all over North County SD. Moonlight's project though should be done next week. All in all, lots of stuff going down at the little beach- just give it a few more months and everything should be back to normal...
