Moclips / Washington / United States

Just to the north of Pacific Beach and sitting right on the Pacific coast is the small community of Moclips.  Known for a long time as a surfers area, especially in winter when the storms bring the surf crashing in, it’s suitable for all. 

The beach here is made up of clean soft sand and is pretty long and wide, so there is always plenty of room on it.  It’s never even busy with beachgoers on the best summer weekend, let alone packed with surfers. 

The wind is good when it is coming from the northeast and the swell is at its best when coming from the west, when you’ll get a wave that starts at about 1m and holds up to about 2.5m or so. It works at all tide positions and both rising and falling tides, and is a fairly standard beach break that breaks both left and right.  The waves are hollow although they don’t really carry much power or speed, and length is decent at up to 150m on a normal day and towards 300m on a good day.

Moclips only has a population of less than a thousand, so you aren’t going to find anything resembling a major city here.  It’s a quaint little place though and most visitors make their visit into a weekend trip as there are a few places to stay and a local grocery store for supplies.

There are frequent shark sightings round here, and they don’t tend to be small ones either.