Summerland California

   Summerland is a small community just south of Santa Barbara. It’s a great little spot, sheltered,  with a beautiful little beach. In fact…. it’s (generally) my favorite beach… but that varies depending on weather and such.

   Here’s some photos I took of Summerland beach this last summer.

   This is from Summerland Beach looking north (actually West) to Santa Barbara. If you walk along this strand for a few miles you pass many resort areas all the way to SB.

   Here are a few random photos of the water…. dogs are allowed on this beach, and it is a great joy to see people and their dogs all enjoying this beach together.
   The photo on the far right shows one of the many oil seeps that occur here.
   A nearby beach is named ‘Carpenteria’ which means ‘The Carpenter Shop’ in Spanish.
   It was named that due to the many Chumash canoes the Spanish saw beached there and being caulked with the heavy oil that seeps from local rock strata.
   These oil seeps are the only thing bad about this beach… and they only occur sporadically when the tide uncovers oil-bearing sand deposits or unplug a seep.  They smell bad, like kerosene… and the normally clean water gets a dirty foamy and rainbow appearance.

   The photo on the left shows a plaque built into a rock commemorating the first oil wells in this area… among the first in the nation.  The photo in the middle is another plaque showing various oceanic occurrences off the coast  in the last few hundred years.

   Here’s a couple of close-ups of the compass, so that you can click-to-embiggen the photos and read the cool things that happened around here.  The photo on the right shows the picnic area.  There is a little grassy area, a ground-padded playground for the kids… easy access to the beach via a paved ramp, and a shower at the top to rinse off before you get back into the car.

   Summerland is more than a pretty beach, it is also a nice little community with a very low crime rate, a cute little shop area right off the highway and some nice architecture much of which was built early in the last century.  It’s close enough to Santa Barbara to stay at as a base-of-operations for your Santa Barbara/Ojai/Ventura vacation.