- Restaurants |
- Nightlife |
- Shopping |
- Movies |
- All
Rat Beach
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
3 reviews for Rat Beach
The sun was setting directly in front of us,
the water looked like a cross between silver and perfect,
her eyes permeated into my very core,
and I thought,
"Yes,
I am falling in love."
This beach is the right place for such thoughts.
Rat Beach, a.k.a. Redondo And Torrance Beach is reviewed under both its names
http://www.yelp.com/bi...
This is currently my fave beach (I call it a cove) on the planet. It's close to where I live and I sometimes walk there every day. I love to go early in the morning at low tide and pick up big conch shells. My garden is full of such trophies, many of which I retrieved by dashing into the surf in attempts to outrun an incoming wave. Sometimes successfully........haha.....
I find sand dollars too, and the sand inside them is as lucky as angel dust, they say.
The very end of Rat Beach is off Paseo de la Playa, in Torrance. Torrance touches the ocean at that point, between South Redondo Beach & Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes Estates. Rat Beach is not crowded ever, presumably because it's kinda hidden, and also because you have to walk in, you can't drive all the way to the end.
So, true to form, this afternoon there was no one there except me and some kitesurfers, and in the mornings I often have it all to myself except for a fisherman or two.
I used to see a man who would walk down from the small residential area up on the bluff with his dog, early in the mornings. The dog, a young yellow lab, would romp in the surf.
One day I happened upon a fisherman who had caught & beached a stingray. It was dying on the sand. He told me he didn't know how to get it back into the water. I insisted he find a way, quickly. In fact I was very upset.
So he made attempts to push it back out with the end of his fishing pole. The creature was so weak at this point, it could hardly move. Finally it reached the water's edge and the waves were lapping against it, drawing it into the water......but the stingray was too weak to swim.
Just at that moment the yellow lab appeared. He charged into the water toward the stingray before anyone could react.
The presence of the dog apparently jolted the stingray into a last attempt at life.....it began to swim. And the dog swam right next to it until they both were in deep water. Then the dog returned to shore and the stingray disappeared.
It seemed like a miracle to me & I will never forget it.
As the stingray had begun to swim away, it looked like a bird in flight, but in slow motion. I've never seen one swim before, and it was as graceful as a bird, even more elegant.
I've been collecting photos of Rat Beach cove for a few years now, and I posted them today. I need to get a pic of the lifeguard station that bears the name "RAT".....haha, next time I'm there.
There's a path at the very end of the cove that leads up to Malaga Cove School, on whose grounds the 4th of July picnic is held every year (it's great).
I like Rat Beach in any kind of weather. It's often very foggy in the mornings and it's beautiful to walk the beach just as the marine layer is lifting. I take my out-of-town visitors to Rat Beach, to show them this special place where the bluffs meet the sea.
The photos will confirm that this spot is one of the coolest little beaches in LA, off the beaten track, and rat-free as far as I know....
but overflowing with magic.
Ah, Rat's Beach. An interesting name, eh? First thing that comes to most people's mind is, you know, rats, vermin. The first thing that always came to my young mind was freedom.
Rat's sits just below the Torrance Beach cliff bluffs where rich people live. They may insist they're not rich but I would argue...with a view like this and access to this beautiful beach, you're rich, bitch, like duh. What are you, stuck on stupid? Just ask the billions of humans who don't get what you have. Yeah, now we're talkin' a different story, aren't we, ya rich mofo?
As a young, teenage Gidget wannabe, Rat's was my escape, my freedom on earth. My friends and I escaped parents, chores and school and found a carefree existence at this little beach with a shady history. At least for a couple years we did. I could recount stories of wild beach parties with semi-clad "beach vermin" kids romping around blazing fires, cheap wine, pot and acid being passed around, surfboards laying around for anyone to pick up and paddle out, hidden little nooks in the bluffs, you know...crazy shit. But you don't want to hear about all that, doya?
Our little surfer clique, a mixture of kids from Rolling Hills, PV, Torrance, and San Pedro, partied here like there was no tomorrow and nothing mattered. And at the time, we were right. For us, Vietnam was a million miles away, getting jobs and making a family were only a distant thought and nothing we had to take seriously. Of course we had to grow up sometime and we all moved on, some on to Vietnam, some got jobs, some had families, some died. But the memory of summertimes on this beach, away from prying eyes, parents and police, were the most fun, carefree and wild and, to me, that's what being a young teenager in So Cal was all about, mistakes and all.
You can't get away with any of that shit these days but Rat's still offers special memories for those that look. Trust me, I'm a survivor.
