Mexico’s magnificent beaches are a must-visit for anyone looking for a relaxing getaway. From all-inclusive havens to pristine, wild paradises, Mexico offers a number of different exceptional experiences, from white sand and crystalline water to adrenaline-pumping surf spots, unforgettably fine fishing, golden-hued coastlines with more sea turtles than people, and barefoot party destinations. Whatever your mood, Mexico has a beach that will match it. Here to help you plan your visit south of the US border, are the best beaches in Mexico.

The Best Beaches in Mexico

1. Playa del Amor, Baja California Sur

The El Arco rock formation is a distinctive granitic rock formation at the southern tip of Cabo San Lucas, which is itself the extreme southern end of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. Also known as Lover’s Beach, Playa del Amor is easily accessed via water taxi from the marina. It has stunning white sand and gentle waves and is adjacent to El Arco on both the Pacific and bay sides. It is one of the most popular and yet still sublime of Los Cabos’ swimmable beaches. It’s important to note that the Pacific side is nicknamed “Divorce Beach” because the water here is not safe for swimming.

2. Playa Sisal, Yucatán

The majority of tourists to Mexico have long been attracted to the state of Quintana Roo because of its well-known combination of resorts, noteworthy nightlife, and historical sites. But the neighboring state of Yucatán presents a worthwhile alternative for frequent flyers seeking something more understated. Yucatán has beautiful beaches with powder-soft sand and calm waters, despite being less popular than the famous Cancun or the Riviera Maya. Playa Sisal, which is just an hour’s drive from Mérida, the state capital, has pristine white sand, clear water, and a quiet charm all its own. Expect only a few beachside palapas and quaint assorted outdoor eateries offering fresh seafood. 

3. Playa Carrizalillo, Oaxaca

While everyone else is kicking it on Playa Zicatela and chugging margaritas, remember, that Playa Carrizalillo is a more secluded beach in Puerto Escondido. It’s situated at the bottom of over 160 steps and has long been a favorite among locals. The reward for making the journey down is turquoise water and a crescent-shaped beach surrounded by swaying palm trees. best

Beginner surfers especially enjoy this beach, and locals are always available to schedule a lesson. Beyond that is a row of barefoot casual, unpretentious beach shacks and snack bars. Veteran visitors can confirm the one on the far right has delicious coconut shrimp. Also, don’t pass up the ice cream vendor either! 

4. Playa Delfines, Quintana Roo

Playa Delfines in Cancun is adored by locals and tourists alike for its expansive stretch of fine, powdery sand, electric blue water, and calm atmosphere. One of the few surfing spots on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, it’s the only beach in the Hotel Zone without a high hotel tower towering over it. The atmosphere is different; despite being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, it feels like a local beach. Since this is one of the few public beaches in Cancun’s hotel district that has amenities, locals primarily use it. If you want to experience those legendary Cancun sunsets but aren’t staying in an oceanfront hotel, head to Playa Delfines instead. 

5. Playa Mayto, Jalisco

This secluded stretch, on the Cabo Corrientes coast, is one of Mexico’s longest and most remote beaches. You will find it roughly two hours south of Puerto Vallarta. Travelers must brave a dusty road that departs from Federal Highway 200 in the small town of El Tuito to get to the beach. Nearly seven miles of largely undeveloped sand, a few local lodging and dining options, and one of Jalisco’s largest sea turtle protection camps, which has led the way in research and conservation initiatives there since 2005, are found there. If you’re staying nearby, ask your hotel if there are opportunities for a day trip to the turtle camp.

6. Playa Troncones, Guerrero

In the past, tourists to Guerrero fairly flocked to the opulent beaches of Acapulco, but recently, Guerrero’s lesser-known locations have begun to draw a bit more attention from visitors. For example, Playa Troncones is about as unassuming as it gets and is frequently populated by surfers searching for the best waves of the sunny southern Pacific coast. But one of Mexico’s top beaches is located in this sleepy town. A three-mile stretch of gorgeous golden sand, cobalt-colored waves, and the laid-back way of life that initially drew travelers to Mexico now welcome them here. 

7. Playa Balandra, Baja California Sur

Playa Balandra is simply breathtaking and is located roughly a half-hour drive north of La Paz, a town on the Sea of Cortez that you should also consider visiting. Off the beaten path, this picture-perfect crescent of sand looks out over a bay that passes for a lagoon and has calm, turquoise waters lapping against its sugary shores. This is the place to go if you want to learn about marine life. Playa Balandra is the ideal location to get up close and personal with some incredible animals, and the Sea of Cortez is one of the most magnificent snorkeling locations in the world. 

8. Puerto Progreso, Yucatán

You should schedule some time to travel north and visit the beach town of Progreso and explore the ancient city of Mérida. In this port, cruise passengers disembark onto the incredible four-mile-long shipping pier before visiting the local boutiques, snack bars, and assorted eateries that line the Malécon, the town’s beautiful beachfront promenade. Take off your sandals and enjoy some fresh ceviche while gazing out at the gorgeous Gulf of Mexico and perhaps spotting a few pink flamingos under one of the beachside palapas.

9. Playa El Médano, Baja California Sur

Médano Beach is one of the few beaches in Los Cabos that is safe enough for swimming. Its length of 2.5 miles and some of the kinder waves in this region of Baja make it the primary beach in Cabo San Lucas. Okay, admittedly you just might have to jostle for space a bit at the local bars and assorted eateries that line the shore because it is also one of the busier beaches. But, hey, there’s a good reason for it: this is the hot spot. You can feel the energy in this place, and a five-star hotel or icy beach cocktail is never far away either.

10. The Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo

A 1.3 million-acre protected area south of Tulum, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, is a unique UNESCO World Heritage site. Some sources say this lovely location for people who love being in nature and value Mother Earth’s gifts. Here, you can find uninhabited white sand beaches, swaying palms, dense mangrove forests, and sparkling azure waters. The Mexican Caribbean is home to some of the best wildlife, including dolphins, jaguars, ocelots, spider monkeys, and whales. So, don’t forget to take your camera. Visitors can engage in pursuits like wildlife spotting, birdwatching, snorkeling, kayaking, and just “floating” down the numerous canals while taking in all the natural beauty of this protected area.

11. Playa Tangolunda, Oaxaca

The southern Oaxacan city of Huatulco is renowned for its nine picturesque bays, as well as the numerous beaches and breathtaking sunset views that come with them. The majority of the beaches in this region are in protected areas and are therefore obviously undeveloped. There is a lot of natural beauty at Playa Tangolunda, as well as sailing and scuba diving opportunities, several opulent resorts, an 18-hole golf course, and a number of different dining options in the nearby town of La Crucecita. 

12. Playa Maroma, Quintana Roo

Whenever veteran visitors are asked about the very best beaches in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, Playa Maroma is often mentioned. Few upscale hotels are located along this exclusive stretch, where visitors can take advantage of the wonderful white sand and peaceful, brilliant blue water. Additionally, this is one of the few locations in the country with hotels with overwater bungalows. Instead of finding beach bars or nightclubs, you will find here exactly what your mind conjures up when it imagines a picture-perfect, tropical beach in paradise. 

13. Isla Holbox, Quintana Roo

This small but exceptional island is situated in the glistening Gulf of Mexico not too far from Quintana Roo’s northern coast. Previously a requirement on the local backpacker trail, it has recently emerged as a hotspot of bohemian luxury. For those who want to just unwind and enjoy the beautiful beach in their bare feet while sipping a cold beer, the island is ideal. Be sure to bring your yoga mat and plenty of insect repellent, and enjoy the Caribbean-inspired seafood at Races while listening to the soft beat of steel drums. From eco-lodges to upscale beachfront hotels, there are a number of excellent options if you are looking for a place to stay.

14. Playa Mujeres, Quintana Roo

It really was not all that long ago that a visitor could count the number of hotels in Playa Mujeres on one hand. This hot spot just north of Cancun’s Hotel Zone, was somewhat of a secret. It was a bit of a hidden gem and was adored for its fine, white sand and relative seclusion from the city’s comparatively rowdier areas. The good news is that the beach’s original allure and beauty still exist, even though the scene has undoubtedly changed as more and more hotels have opened. At the couples-only Beloved Playa Mujeres, you can still find peace and tranquility, or you can bring the whole family to a bigger resort like the TRS Coral Hotel or its sibling, the Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Resort & Spa. 

15. Playa La Punta, Oaxaca

Playa La Punta is a section of Playa Zicatela in Puerto Escondido. It is fairly famous for being a little bit quieter than the rest of the most popular beaches in Puerto Escondido. Long known as a hippie haven, this area of town is known for its dustier roads, laid-back eateries, and abundance of hostels. However, with more and more design-forward boutique hotels and even a brand-new outdoor food court, its reputation is evolving. The idyllic beach, however, is still everyone’s preferred front-row spot for watching the sunset. One of the many boutique hotels in Puerto Escondido, like Suites La Hacienda or Hotel Santa Fe, might be a good choice if you’re looking for a place to unwind and take in the ocean view. 

16. Playa Paraiso, Quintana Roo

Just south of the famous ruins is Playa Paraiso, one of Tulum’s best beaches. In fact, it is not only one of the most beautiful beaches in the area, it is arguably one of the best beaches in Mexico. The beach is well known for its pristine waters and fine, white sand. 

This large stretch of striking sand is ideal for unwinding completely and is the center of activity in Tulum. The region’s residents come here for day trips just to admire the white, turquoise, and green color schemes. Here you can enjoy several different water sports such as swimming, scuba diving, and snorkeling. You can also relax at a beach bar, and do some sunbathing.   

17. Playa Blanca, Guerrero

Playa Blanca, which is less than 10 miles from Zihuatanejo, has that “paradise found” vibe and might actually remind you of that Caribbean beach used as a location in the classic motion picture Shawshank Redemption. This beach in Zihua is just outside of town close to the airport. We get major Robinson Crusoe vibes from this seemingly endless stretch of sparsely populated beach, which also happens to be the location of some of the most spectacular sunsets we’ve ever witnessed. There aren’t many hotels to choose from, but Las Palmas Luxury Villas will make you feel as though you have gotten away from it all and landed on your very own private beach. 

18. Costalegre, Jalisco

Costalegre is a large section of coast in southern Jalisco, close to the state of Colima’s border, and is much more than just a single beach. Every beach in the area is deserving of this list due to the area’s stunningly untamed beauty. Today, a lot of travelers visit this region of the state, south of Puerto Vallarta, to stay at opulent resort communities like Cuixmala and Careyes.  

Veteran visitors can confirm the beauty and overall list-worthiness of this place. Despite having two international airports on either side of it, it is isolated and largely unexplored. However, this region of Mexico may soon be operating at a Los Cabos level of luxury thanks to the promise of a new airport, better roads, and more upscale accommodations.

19. Playa Cerritos, Baja California Sur

Todos Santos should be on your radar if it isn’t already. The Pacific Coast town has long been a haven for surfers and artists. It is located less than an hour’s drive north of Los Cabos. 

You can anticipate finding unique shops, art galleries, and a crowd enjoying oysters and champagne. Todos Santos has always been a place where you can pick your own adventure, and it remains so today. Playa Cerritos, the most well-known beach in the region, has long been a mecca for surfers. It’s also one of the few Pacific beaches in Baja that is completely safe for swimming. And while it might be a little busier now than it was in earlier decades, it is undeniably one of Mexico’s top beaches. 

20. Playa Canalán, Nayarit

Playa Canalán is a long, wide stretch of warm, white sand bookended by lush, jungle-covered mountains. Until recently, it was completely undeveloped. Today, it’s home to the well-known One&Only Mandarina resort, the popular Canalan Beach Club, and the noteworthy Italian restaurant named Allora. These are all part of Mandarina, a newly planned community that occupies some of the most coveted real estate on the coast.

One&Only Mandarina is an all-villa resort offering 105 striking standalone structures consisting of cliff-top villas and treehouses. It’s located less than one hour north of Puerto Vallarta on Riviera Nayarit. The resort opened its doors on November 1, 2020, and offers both adventurous activities and secluded tranquility. 

21. The Lagunas de Chacahua, Oaxaca

To reach this beach, you’ll need to put in a little extra effort. Ah, but it is well worth the effort. One of the most remote and idyllic beaches in all of Mexico is reached by water taxi from Puerto Escondido via the Lagunas de Chacahua National Park. 

On the northern side of the inlet where Chacahua Lagoon empties into the Pacific Ocean, there is a beautiful beach. Surfers from all over the world, including Australia, swarm the beach huts in search of the ideal waves. In this region of Mexico, “lights out” is also taken seriously.  There is little pollution, so you can really see the stars.

Note: Expect minimal unnecessary amenities. In general, the best time to visit these beaches in Mexico is reportedly between December and April.  That’s when the weather is sunny and dry.

]]> https://listorati.com/the-best-beaches-in-mexico/feed/ 0 12184 https://listorati.com/10-strangest-beaches-in-the-world/ https://listorati.com/10-strangest-beaches-in-the-world/#respond Tue, 27 Feb 2024 00:10:02 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-strangest-beaches-in-the-world/

Everyone loves a trip to the beach. The warmth of the Sun on your skin, the fresh air blowing off the sea, the soft sand between your toes, the glowing waves, the chunks of ice, and the hot springs are what make a holiday special.

You probably weren’t expecting to read some of the items in that last sentence, but not all beaches are the same. Some have very unique qualities. Here are ten of the most unusual beaches on Earth to plan your next holiday around.

10 Hidden Beach

Algar de Benagil in Portugal is one of the highlights of the Algarve coast. Someone walking by on the cliffs above might notice the hiss and rush of waves but not know where the sound is coming from. Getting closer, they will see a fence which surrounds a gaping hole. Only if they peer down into the hole will they see the hidden beach beneath.

Algar de Benagil is a natural grotto worn into the rock of the cliffs by the action of the tides.^[1] In the arched space left behind, a beach has formed. The hole in the roof of the cave acts as an oculus which lets daylight in to the secluded, sandy beach. Since the only access to the grotto is from the sea, you’ll have to brave the waves to enter between the rocks which guard the entrance if you want to visit.

9 Black Sand And Chunks Of Ice

Iceland is a volcanic island in the North Atlantic. Because it is made of volcanic rock, it has many beaches which reflect the color of the rock they are worn from. Black sand can be found in many places. Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon is different; here, the black sands are dotted with chunks of diamond-clear glacial ice.

Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon is attached to the sea by Iceland’s shortest river, a mere 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) long. The beach may look ancient and otherworldly, but it only formed in the mid-1930s as the glacier Breioamerkurjokull retreated.^[2] It is from the glacier that the brilliant lumps of ice on the beach come. The lagoon is still growing, and growing faster each year, as the glacier melts. The black sand of the beach is what remains of the volcanic rocks, pulverized under the immense weight of the glacier.

8 Hot Water Beach

Why do you take a bucket and spade to the beach? Most people would say to build sandcastles. In one area of New Zealand, you might get a very different answer. On the Coromandel Peninsula, people will say that they need them to dig their own hot water spa.

Hot Water Beach has one of the most literal geographic names in the world. When the tide goes out, water can be seen bubbling up from the sand. This water is hot. An underground river is warmed by geothermal heat that comes close to the surface here. ^[3]

As soon as the tide is out, visitors flock to the sand, some with spades which can be rented from a local cafe, and begin digging pools. The cold seawater retreats, and the pools fill with the hot water that gives the beach its name. Here, beachgoers can wallow in the natural spas. Then the tide comes in and washes all the pools away, leaving the beach flat for the next batch of visitors with their spades.

7 Bioluminescent Beaches

Bioluminescent beaches can crop up almost anywhere. Some plankton and algae can glow with their own light—called bioluminescence. Because it takes energy for them to glow, they only produce light in certain conditions. When these conditions are met, they can light up an entire beach.

Some beaches have fairly regular bioluminescence at predictable times if you want to see this natural wonder.^[4] By day, the depressingly named Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico looks a slightly sludgy brown. At night, swimmers and kayakers can see dinoflagellates scintillating with blue light, their motion provoking the organisms to light up. In the Maldives during the autumn months, when the Moon is low, minuscule crustaceans produce a blue glow to help attract mates. Because they are larger than most algae and plankton, they sprinkle the sands with tiny dots of light.

Some algae and plankton produce their light when put under pressure. Walking on a beach covered in them can leave a trail of glowing footprints behind.

6 An Inland Beach

The very least you can say about most beaches is that they are beside the sea. Gulpiyuri beach in Spain bucks that trend by being inland. It’s only 100 meters (330 ft) from the sea, but it’s still cut off from it by high rocks and cliffs. Yet as the tide comes in on the sea beyond, the sand of this hidden beach is covered by water, too. How can such a tiny body of water be tidal?

The solution is a series of caves and channels that have formed in the rocks that connect Gulpiyuri to the sea beyond. The tiny beach was formed in the last Ice Age, and its name means “Circle of Water.”^[5] Gulpiyuri is sometimes called the world’s smallest beach, which may well be true. It is certainly surprising to find a beach in the middle of green field. At high tide, it is just about possible to swim at Gulpiyuri, but if you want to enjoy the sand, you should go at low tide and just wade in the knee-high sea.

5 The Disappearing Sea

When the tide goes out, beaches become great places to walk, run, or play sports on the sand. It’s still nice to hear the sea nearby, though, to remind you where you are. In Chandipur in India, twice a day with the low tide, the sea entirely disappears.

Due to the unusually flat seabed which comes up to the shore, the low tide makes the sea recede by up to 5 kilometers (3.1 mi).^[6] The huge expanse of sand is used by locals and tourists for walks, bike rides, and even car journeys all the way out to the now-distant ocean. The exposed seabed is also rich in red crabs and other sea creatures, which twice a day find themselves gawped at by humans as they are cut off from the sea by kilometers of sand. The sight of the disappearing ocean is being used to attract tourists to the area. Just be sure you know the tide times, or you might find yourself suddenly 5 kilometers out at sea.

4 Shell Beach

Searching out seashells on the beach can be a good way to get children to pass the time. On Shell Beach in Australia, however, you should probably set them to the task of finding something other than seashells. A 70-kilometer (43 mi) stretch of the coast is covered in a layer of cockle shells up to 10 meters (33 ft) deep.^[7]

Trillions of cockle shells have built up in the area over the ages. The tide will eventually break them down into fine, sandy particles, but for the moment, the shells remain intact. In the past, locals mined the shells to turn them into building materials, though the beach is now a World Heritage Site and used for tourism as opposed to construction. The area also has hypersaline water. The extra salt makes it easy for visitors to float.

3 Glass Beach

Usually the last thing you want to see on a beach is broken glass. Some places, however, owe their uniqueness to the thoughtlessness of humans. Fort Bragg, California, has a beach covered in sparkling pebbles of sea-polished glass. For decades, the local communities dumped their unwanted goods, even cars, beside the sea. While organic things decayed, and metal either rusted or was taken away, broken glass built up and was tumbled by the waves into smooth lumps. The beach now is protected by law, and the iconic glass cannot be removed by visitors.^[8]

Other places around the world also have high concentrations of sea glass thanks to dumping by people. Ussuri Bay in Siberia is home to glassmaking factories which dumped their mistakes into the sea. Now, the beach is a colorful mix of stones and sea glass.

2 Parrotfish Poop

What could be more romantic than walking hand-in-hand with your loved one over a gleaming, white, sandy beach? Maybe you lie in the sand and let it run through your fingers and muse on where so much beauty came from. Few people would imagine that all the dazzling sand around them is the product of fish poop.

Parrotfish live in reefs and feed by gnawing on the coral. The fish are after the algae that live on the reef and cannot digest the calcium carbonate their hard beaks break off to get at them. Teeth in the fishes’ throats crush the tough calcium carbonate, and when it passes out of the digestive tract, it is fine like sand.^[9] A single parrotfish can produce up to 360 kilograms (800 lb) of sand each year. Multiply that by thousands of fish and thousands of years, and you get those highly sought-after white beaches.

1 Dragon Egg Beach

New Zealand’s amazing natural landscape has made it a favorite location for filming fantasy movies, as it has sights found nowhere else on Earth. Dragon Egg Beach may sound like something out of Game of Thrones, but it is a real place and a popular tourist destination.

There is a stretch of Koekohe Beach that is dotted with large, spherical boulders. These Moeraki boulders formed 60 million years ago from concretions of mud, clay, and calcite. The boulders formed underground and thus were not smoothed by the motion of the waves. They have only recently been washed out of the cliffs above, from which they roll down to the beach.^[10] The boulders are full of erratic cracks, which, once exposed, can break open to give the boulders the look of hatching eggs.

Local Maori legend has the boulders being formed when they first sailed to their new home. One of their canoes was wrecked, and as it sank, baskets and gourds were thrown overboard. The hull of the canoe became the reef that surrounds the beach, while the jettisoned goods became the Moeraki boulders.

Ben Gazur is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter as he dreams of visiting the places he writes about.

Over the years, an assortment of bizarre items has been found on the world’s beaches. Some have been living creatures; others, dead marine animals; still others, inanimate objects. A strange sea foam has washed ashore, carrying a variety of everyday items with it that beachgoers don’t see on the beach every day. Cast-off casings and even a phallic animal out of Sigmund Freud’s worst nightmare have also washed or crawled ashore. As this list of 10 bizarre objects found on beaches indicates, the mysteries of the deep are strange, indeed.

10 Strangest Things Found In Sewers

10 Glowing Rock

On February 22, 2021, Mantana Dao Pibul decided to go for a walk on the beach in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Thailand. There, she saw a piece of coral. Collecting it as a souvenir, she took a closer look at her discovery—and found that the bizarre object was glowing! She shone the light from her phone on the strange specimen, and, when its red color brightened, she wondered whether the object could be a meteorite. After she returned home, she observed that the unusual mineral had changed color. Instead of red, it was now purple. Neither Mantana nor her friends have been able to identify the strange object. She hopes an expert might be able to tell her what she found during her walk on the beach.

9 Blue Dragons

It’s light blue, and it looks like a lizard, the dark-blue coloration on its back outlining its body. The marine animal’s feet are quite different from those of a reptile, though, seeming to explode in bizarre starbursts, the spiky rays of which differ in length from one another. Although it’s usually called a blue dragon, scientists know it as Glaucus atlanticus, a type of nudibranch, a gastropod without a shell or true gills. Normally, the blue dragon floats in the ocean, but the wind sometimes blows a whole “fleet” of them onto Australian beaches. Besides the 3-centimeter-long Glaucus atlanticus, the 13-centimeter-long Glaucilla marginate, also a nudibranch that closely resembles its smaller cousin and is likewise called a blue dragon, occasionally blows ashore.

Both the smaller and the larger blue dragons belong to “the pleuston, which lives partly in the water and partly in the air and relies on the winds to carry them places.” Although blue dragons can’t swim against ocean currents, the tiny animals are able to spin themselves around and to perform “somersaults” by sucking air into themselves. The air forms a bubble inside them, helping them “stay afloat and [to remain] upside down.”

Despite their restricted mobility, blue dragons are predators “in their own small world,” feeding on blue buttons (colonies of hydroids) and bluebottles (colonies of polyps), while relying on their coloration to “blend in” with the ocean’s surface and avoid attacks by other predators.

8 Gooseneck Barnacles

To Martyn Green, who saw it while vacationing with his family in Caernarfon, North Wales, the odd object his wife Gemma found looked like driftwood. When he examined it more carefully, however, Green discovered that the item was “covered with thousands of tentacled sea creatures.” To him, it looked like “something not of this world.”

The Internet search that Green and his son conducted solved the mystery of the marine animal’s identity. Gemma had found gooseneck barnacles. Green also made another discovery: his wife’s find was valuable. A delicacy in Spain and Portugal, gooseneck barnacles were worth £25 (US$ 34.82) each! Green estimated that the “driftwood” would yield about 2,000 of the barnacles—not a bad day’s catch.

7 Sea Foam

The strange sea foam that washed ashore on Australia’s beaches in New South Wales in December 2020 was a gift that kept on giving. Storms churned up the mix of “seawater . . . algae, salts, fats and pollutants” that created the “thick layer of foam” that spread over the surface of the water. Weird in itself, the foam also brought a variety of other bizarre objects to the beaches, including “deadly” sea snakes, giant spiders, trees, logs, and even “half a cow.” A dog had to be rescued from the foam, and “authorities . . . warned tourists and locals to keep away from these beaches and avoid swimming at all cost to ensure [their] safety.”

6 Unidentified Carcass

Was the eerie carcass that washed onto a Mexican beach in February 2020 a dolphin? If it was, it was certainly a strange one: it had no eyes, and its teeth were much longer, more curved, and sharper than those of dolphins’ typical short, blunt, only slightly curved teeth. And dolphins, of course, have eyes.

Maybe the mysterious creature that washed ashore at Destiladeras, in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, was an eel. Its lower body lacked fins and flukes and was much narrower than that of a dolphin’s anatomy.

While these guesses are reasonable, no one, including fishermen, could identify the carcass with any certainty. Its lack of eyes suggested that the sea creature might have come from the depths of the sea, perhaps from the 1,000-meter-deep marine area in Puerto Vallarta, although, if so, no one had any idea how the animal could have been carried onto the shore from such a depth.

5 Decapitated “Corpse”

During her clean-up of a beach in Perdido Bay, in November 2020, a woman identified only as Kathleen found more than trash or debris. She encountered a headless, barnacle-encrusted corpse, which she reported to Ocean Hour, the nonprofit environmental group with whom she was doing volunteer work. A bystander had already notified the police of the macabre object.

The victim, Kathleen saw, had been decapitated—or so she’d thought. Fortunately, although the “corpse” certainly looked human, authorities determined that it was, in fact, a mannequin. Its origin and the amount of time that it had been in the water remain mysteries.

4 Sea Pork

The eyes, the mouth, and a portion of the face and head could be discerned in the “strange mass” that the sea deposited on the sands of Urangan Beach in Hervey Bay, Southern Queensland, Australia, in February 2020. The woman who discovered it posted a photograph of her find on Facebook, but none of the members of the social media group could identify the remains. They agreed only that the discovery was not part of a stone fish, because stone fish have rough skin, but the creature the woman found and photographed had smooth flesh.

Group members took several stabs at identifying the “lump,” venturing such guesses as “soft coral,” “ambergris,” “shark excrement,” and even a whale’s “placenta.” Even Professor Sandie Degnan, of the The University of Queensland’s School of Biological Science wasn’t sure what the mass was, although she suspected it was probably a sea pork, which she described as “a kind of sea squirt, related to the cunjevois,” so-called because of its tendency to “squirt out water.” Fishermen, she added, eviscerate the creatures and use the animals’ “guts as fishing bait.”

3 Hoodwinker

Although they are described in various ways, one depiction of the hoodwinker seems closest to its actual appearance: “an enormous . . . floating head.” Adding “with fins” would make the picture even more complete and accurate.

Hearing of the strange sea creature on Feb. 19, 2019, after it washed ashore on “the beach at Coal Oil Point Reserve, near Santa Barbara, California, conservation specialist Jessica Nielsen posted photographs of its carcass on the nature reserve’s Facebook page, where the pictures caught the eye of UC Santa Barbara’s Professor Thomas Turner. Visiting the site, he uploaded his own pictures of the sea creature on the iNaturalist social platform.

In Australia, a researcher notified marine scientist Marianne Nyegaard, suspecting that the carcass was that of a fish she’d discovered and named the hoodwinker. Sure enough, it was a hoodwinker, she confirmed, later verifying her identification through “genetic testing.” A species of sunfish, the scientific name for which is Mola tecta, the hoodwinker is common to “tropical and temperate ocean” waters. Reaching up to eight feet in length, it can weigh several thousand pounds.

Its appearance on a California beach puzzled scientists, since the hoodwinker has rarely been spotted in the Northern Hemisphere. Was it a stray? Was the creature’s seemingly sudden penchant for long-distance travel the result of the warming of oceans due to climate change? Were “changes in ocean currents” carrying the hoodwinker’s food source, jellyfish, to new parts of the ocean, causing the hoodwinkers to follow? For now, these questions remain unanswered mysteries.

2 Worm Casings

The fragile tubes look like twigs frozen in ice. The “small, silvery filament-like objects” don’t coat tree branches, though; they wash up on Oregon beaches. The dislodged shells of cellophane worms (Spichaetopterus costarum) are commonly known as “tube worm casings.” As Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium explains, cellophane worms “live just below the low tide line of sandy beaches,” where they construct and reside inside the tubes, “which become encrusted with sand” and are washed ashore and distributed along the beach by surf, “currents and upwellings.”

CoastWatch’s Fawn Custer pointed out that the cellophane worms, which “feel like hair,” are always present. At times, under “certain conditions,” they are unearthed and scattered “onshore” by the action of waves. Normally, the diminutive worms “suck in their food, tiny bits of formerly living matter,” through their tubes, which rise close to the “surface of the sand.” When their tubes are detached by surf or currents, the worms secrete “a kind of goo that eventually hardens into another tube.”

1 “Sea Penis”

The priapulida is one of the most bizarre sea creatures ever to wash ashore on any beach, anywhere. Due to its likeness to the phallus, the unsegmented worm was named after the Greek god Priapus, who represents “male generative power.” It isn’t seen all that often because it lives on the bottom of the ocean.

According to Australian freediver Josie Jones, who came across one of the worms “on the sea floor off Rye Front Beach in Victoria,” 160 species of the creature live under the beach’s pier. The worms’ resemblance to the phallus is even more emphatic when they discharge their “eggs and sperm into the sea.”

For the fun of it, Jones posted a photograph of the priapulida on Facebook, which occasioned a lot of jokes, mostly of the sophomoric variety. Even comedian Mark Normand got into the act, commenting, “Ladies, if you aren’t satisfied at home, remember there are plenty of fish in the sea.”

10 Bizarre Objects Found In Porta Potties

About The Author: An English instructor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Gary L. Pullman lives south of Area 51, which, according to his family and friends, explains “a lot.” His four-book series, An Adventure of the Old West, is available on Amazon.

The beach is one of those few places that practically everyone views in a positive light. However, this bright and fun destination is not immune from danger and darkness lurking beneath the surface.

More times than you might think, casual trips to the beach have quickly gone wrong—sometimes in shocking or tragic ways. For all you know, your favorite sandy hangout spot could have a dark secret history too.

Here are ten stories about beaches where horrifying things have gone down.

10 Wanda Beach

Like a good sister, 15-year-old Marianne Schmidt took her younger siblings to the beach one January day in 1965. Accompanied by her best friend and neighbor, Christine Sharrock, the group set out to Sydney, Australia’s Wanda Beach, for what should have been a nice afternoon.

It was a windy day, and the weather did not seem to be letting up. Schmidt and Sharrock eventually decided to go grab their bags so they could all head home. When walking toward the bags, Schmidt’s younger brother called out to ask why they were walking in the wrong direction. The girls just laughed this off and kept on walking.

They never returned. Their dead bodies were found next to each other after their families reported the disappearance to authorities. Despite setting a new Australian record for most people interviewed during an investigation, the case has never been conclusively solved. It is now the oldest case still under review by the New South Wales unsolved homicide unit.^[1]

9 Short Sands Beach

Thirty-five-year-old Rhonda Pattelena loved spending time at Short Sands Beach in Maine. The Bedford, Massachusetts, mother of three tried to visit her favorite spot each and every summer so she could pass the time enjoying the waves and feeling the sand between her toes.

She was probably very excited in March 2021 when she and her boyfriend Jeffrey Buchanan, a man she considered her “soulmate,” went out to take a walk along her beloved beach. But she never returned. Although he claims to have “blacked out” and not remember his actions, surveillance footage revealed that Buchanan brutally beat Pattelena to death with a large rock.

The crime shocked the community, as well as Pattelena’s loved ones. The town where she lost her life held a vigil for her at the scene of the crime as a way to “reclaim” the spot she always loved escaping to.^[2]

8 Cannon Beach

If you happened to drive past the picturesque shores of Cannon Beach, Oregon, you would definitely notice their intense beauty—but you probably would not realize they were haunted. Yes, as legend has it, the beaches near a particular area of U.S. Highway 101 are home to a mysterious ghostly apparition known as the “Bandage Man.”

Here’s how the story goes. When a young couple parked their truck along the waterfront back in the 1950s, they suddenly felt something aggressively shaking their vehicle from the outside. When they looked behind them, they spotted what appeared to be a man covered from head to toe in bloody bandages banging on their window and trying to get inside.

Naturally, the couple sped off as fast as they possibly could, and the figure disappeared behind them. Since then, others have reported similar encounters with the creepy mystery figure in this exact same spot—some even as recently as 2019.^[3]

7 Jaboatao dos Guararapes

Fifty-one-year-old Marcelo Rocha Santos was spending a pleasant afternoon at the beach with some friends in the eastern-Brazilian city of Jaboatao dos Guarararpes. During the outing, he suddenly realized he needed to use the bathroom. Finding no official restroom facilities in the area, both he and one of his friends decided to relieve themselves in the water.

This turned out to be a fatal mistake. In the middle of doing their business, an 8-foot (2.6-meter) tiger shark came out of nowhere and violently attacked Santos right in front of his friend. Santos attempted to fight off the shark, but it was no use. He quickly lost consciousness, and the water filled up with blood.

By the time his friends managed to pull his discarded body out of the water, large chunks of his arm and leg were missing. He was pronounced dead as soon as he arrived at a nearby hospital.^[4]

6 Hermosa Beach

In April 1954, a young couple was spending some time with their infant son at California’s Hermosa Beach when things took a sudden and very dark turn. A large wave came crashing toward them without warning and whisked the helpless baby away.

Distraught and unable to locate their child, Mr. and Mrs. McDonald clutched each other tightly—trying to process the horror of what had just happened to them. Tragically, the couple tried to think of anything they could possibly do to save their child but ultimately had to just wait in agony until the poor kid’s dead body washed up on shore later in the day.

But the story does not end there. Unbeknownst to the couple, a neighborhood resident who overheard the whole commotion happened to be a photographer for The Los Angeles Times. Realizing something important was happening, he instinctively snapped a photo and eerily captured the couple’s most desperate moment for the entire world to see. The photo was so poignant that it won a Pulitzer Prize for its taker, John Gaunt.^[5]

5 Fort Lauderdale

South Florida’s beaches are among the most popular in the world—but they, too, have been touched by tragedy. Passersby took notice in June 2012 when a massive yacht washed up on the shores of a Fort Lauderdale beach with no one on board.

It was not long before people realized that the yacht belonged to well-known Brazilian oil tycoon and philanthropist Guma Aguiar. Upon inspection of the vessel, no blood was found nor any other trace of his remains. Subsequent searches could not determine his whereabouts, and he was eventually assumed to be dead.

Nevertheless, the story still gets stranger. In the months following Aguiar’s disappearance, a conspiracy theory arose claiming that he was still alive and hiding out in the Netherlands. One of the individuals who floated this possibility in public was the lawyer of Aguiar’s own wife.^[6]

4 Huntington Beach

If you spent any time hanging around the shores of Huntington Beach, California, in 1968, you might have noticed a group of teenagers playing music and wearing colorful attire. Given the hippy counterculture of the time, you might not have batted an eye at this seemingly-harmless sight.

But appearances can be deceiving. These casual waterside concerts were actually part of a concerted recruitment effort by a dangerous cult called “Teens for Christ.” The goal of these sessions was to lure unsuspecting beachgoers to visit their “Light Club” facility just off the pier, where they would be made into members of the group.

Within a few years, “Teens for Christ” became “Children of God”—a group now remembered for its leader’s egregious treatment of his followers. This treatment included sexual abuse, violence, incest, and brainwashing.^[1]

3 Cheviot Beach

World leaders are probably the most surveilled and carefully guarded human beings on the planet—which makes the story of Harold Holt all the more baffling. Holt was the sitting Prime Minister of Australia in December 1967 when he decided to go for a swim on a beach near Melbourne.

At some point during this swim, Holt disappeared—and was never seen again. To this day, despite very intense searches, his remains have never been found. The only trace of him ever having been there was the pile of clothes he left behind on the shore.

In the years and decades since his disappearance, many theories have been proposed to explain the baffling mystery. Some of the ideas proposed have ranged from suicide to a freak accident to an international hit job.^[8]

2 Gilgo Beach

When Long Island police received a frantic 9-1-1 call from Shannan Gilbert in 2010 claiming that someone was trying to kill her, they had no idea what had just hit them. The search for Gilbert led investigators to discover the bodies of four deceased women, all of whom had been wrapped in fabric and discarded in an area along the Gilgo Beach coast.

It soon became clear that all these women, including Gilbert, had been working as escorts on the Craigslist website. Soon after, the remains of as many as 16 victims were discovered within this same stretch, revealing that a serial killer had been luring victims to the area for nearly two decades before anyone caught on.

Despite ten years passing since the discovery of the bodies, authorities have still never charged any suspect with the crimes, and the identity of the serial killer remains unknown.^[9]

1 Somerton Beach

In December 1948, two passersby spotted a well-dressed middle-aged man lying face-up on the beach in Adelaide, Australia. Sensing that something was not right, they approached and discovered that the man was deceased. The man had no I.D. on him, and his body showed no signs of foul play.

In an effort to find clues about his identity, investigators found a small, rolled-up fragment of paper with the words “Tamam Shud” written on it. These words mean “the end” in Persian and are a quote from the 11th-century poem “The Rubaiyat.”

For years, the identity of the man remained uncovered. However, recent DNA tests may have shed light on this decades-old mystery. Many concerned scientists and researchers have tried their hand at cracking the mystery but have not succeeded until recently. Rumors about his identity abounded, from a Russian spy or a jilted lover poisoned by his paramour to a smuggler or a former ballet dancer. In 2022, it is now believed that the unknown “Somerton Man” was an electrical engineer from Melbourne, Carl “Charles” Webb.^[10]

After ocean swimming was popularized in Victorian Britain as a health activity, beaches transitioned from places where people worked or foraged to places of recreation and enjoyment. Today, beaches are regularly featured in picture-postcard images as idyllic places of coconut palms, white sand, pretty girls in bikinis, kitesurfers getting big air, and surfers riding perfect waves, not dangerous places to be avoided.

Millions of people worldwide enjoy beaches during their holidays and for recreational opportunities on a daily basis, including surfing, swimming, fishing, sunbathing, shell-collecting, running, dog-walking, clamming, sleeping, counting sand grains, and dozens of other activities.

But beaches have another side—one that can be both sinister and downright dangerous. Here are 10 of the world’s most dangerous beaches.!

10 Second Beach, Port St. Johns, Transkei Coast of South Africa

Second Beach at Port St. Johns is an otherwise pleasant holiday destination on the magnificent Transkei coast of South Africa. Families have taken their holidays here for decades. However, in recent years Second Beach has acquired the reputation as the most dangerous beach in South Africa.

With eight fatal shark attacks in five years on surfers and swimmers, Second Beach may well be the most dangerous beach in the world for sharks.

The species claimed to be responsible for the fatal incidents at Second Beach is the Zambezi shark, known as a Bull shark in other parts of the world. Bull sharks can grow to 2.5 meters (8 feet) and have a reputation for aggressive behavior. They are known to take a bite out of almost anything they find in the water, much like Tiger sharks.^[1]

9 New Smyrna Beach, Florida, USA

Also near the top of the list for shark attacks is New Smyrna Beach, located in Volusia County, Florida, USA. New Smyrna is a popular state-administered beach with plenty of parking. It has a high number of surfers and ocean swimmers year-round, with an average of 9 shark bites per year.

When seasonal schools of juvenile fish swim northward along the Florida coast in an annual migration involving millions of animals, they are followed by a multitude of predators, among them sea birds and sharks.

Fortunately, most of the sharks following the schools of baitfish at New Smyrna are also juveniles of 2 meters (6 feet) in length or less, with the vast majority of bites non-fatal, unlike human encounters with bigger sharks elsewhere.^[2]

8 Boa Viagem Beach, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

Also high on the list of dangerous beaches due to shark activity is Boa Viagem in Recife, in the tropical state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil. Boa Viagem is a very popular beach in the center of Recife, a city of two million people. And many of them embrace beach culture and participate in many beach activities year-round, like surfing and swimming.

There have been over 50 shark attacks recorded in the past 20 years at this beach, many of them fatal. As a result, Boa Viagem has actually banned surfing and swimming in water more than one meter (39 inches) deep since 1999.

Lifeguards undergo special training to deal with shark injuries, and most of the incidents have been attributed to Bull and Tiger sharks, both large sharks known to be aggressive species.

Despite years of discussion among experts on a path forward to reduce the number of shark incidents at Boa Viagem, there is no clear plan other than to keep people out of the water.^[3]

7 Sandy Beach, O’ahu Hawaii, USA

Sandy Beach, on the southeast Ka’iwi Coast of the island of O’ahu, is known to locals as “Broke Neck Beach” due to the powerful shore-break waves and the large number of injuries inflicted on both visitors and locals by these powerful waves. Sandy Beach receives almost constant ocean swell from the northeast trade winds, short-period waves that break into hollow, powerful tubes on a steep, sandy beach. Sandy’s is well-known for its great body surfing and bodyboarding conditions and attracts many locals and visitors year-round.

The powerful waves dump surfers onto the shallow sandbar in awkward positions, even experienced bodysurfers, resulting in many injuries. Most are simply bruises or scrapes, but some incidents are very serious, like broken necks, pelvic bones, and spinal cord injuries.

Sandy Beach has some of the best trained and most experienced lifeguards in the city and county of the Honolulu system, as they are often called upon to use their rescue training and first-aid skills in real-life emergency situations.^[4]

6 Makua Beach, Haena, Kauai, Hawaii, USA

Makua Beach, also known as “Tunnels Beach” after the offshore surfing spot, is the beach where 13-year-old Bethany Hamilton paddled out on her surfboard to catch a few waves with friends on a sunny day in late October 2013.

After one particular wave, she was paddling back out to the takeoff spot when a large Tiger shark, estimated at 4 meters (12 feet), rose from the depths and bit off her left arm cleanly at the shoulder.

The shocking shark encounter wasn’t the first at this beach, which was well-known for large Tiger sharks for years among the people who regularly surfed there. However, it was by far the most famous. The attack and international media coverage made Hamilton an international celebrity as the “Shark Girl.”

Quick action by her friends to control blood loss and treatment at a nearby hospital by capable medical personnel saved her life that morning. Hamilton has gone on to become a top female professional surfer, as well as a wife and mother with a book and a film about her life after the attack.^[5]

5 Esperance, Western Australia, Australia

By all measures, the town of Esperance in the southwest of Western Australia is an idyllic place to live, work, and raise a family. There are beautiful white sand beaches and perfect surfing waves in the Indian Ocean. Nearly everyone has a job or a hobby related to the sea. Ocean-centered activities are central to both work and play and enjoyed by everyone, from residents to a small but economically important visitor industry.

With three fatal shark attacks in just three years on surfers and divers, the bonds of family and friendship have been stretched and, in some cases, irreparably broken in this close-knit community. With all three attacks attributed to Great White sharks, many people in the community have been calling for a mitigation strategy, from shark nets to motion-sensor drumlines to outright culling of problem sharks.

Pending further research and available funding, government response is so far limited to an official warning to stay out of the water when sharks are present.^[6]

4 Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan

Before 2011, the beach in front of the nuclear plant at Okuma was a popular surfing area frequented by surfers, fishermen, and other beachgoers.

On March 11, 2011, the area was rocked by a massive offshore earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, the largest earthquake ever recorded in this earthquake-prone country. The massive Tohoku quake generated a series of tsunami waves that rushed inland over a wide area of the region, inundating everything in their path of destruction.

In the path of the tsunami waves was the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) nuclear power station at Okuma, in Fukushima Prefecture, located immediately behind the beach. One of the massive waves, estimated at over 15 meters (50 feet), breached the protective concrete wall around the reactors and flooded the diesel generators supplying cooling water to them. This precipitated a partial meltdown of the reactor cores and a release of radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Ten years after the earthquake and nuclear disaster, the entire area around the TEPCO reactors is still an exclusion zone. There are no surfers, fishermen, or other beachgoers allowed in the area as radioactive water from the crippled reactors is slowly being released into the Pacific Ocean. The area is likely to remain an exclusion zone for decades to come.^[7]

3 Imperial Beach, California, USA

Imperial Beach is an otherwise pleasant beach town south of San Diego in California, approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the international border with Mexico. Long popular with surfers for consistent and powerful waves, Imperial Beach also hosts many fishermen and other beachgoers who enjoy the Pacific Ocean as residents or visitors.

What has made the town and its beachfront infamous in recent decades is not located in the town itself, nor even in the United States.

There is a massive wastewater treatment plant just over the border in Mexico that handles all the wastewater from the city of Tijuana, an urban metropolis of over two million people, which has seen a huge increase in population since the 1950s. The plant is, by all estimates, far over the capacity for which it was designed, and colossal amounts of raw sewage and industrial pollutants are regularly discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

Prevailing ocean currents in the area flow from south to north, carrying as much as 140 million liters (35 million gallons) per day of toxic effluent across the international border and into Imperial Beach, the first populated area north of the border. Town officials regularly post warnings not to go into the water. However, there is little they can do to control or eliminate the discharge of the noxious discharge affecting their beaches, as it takes place in another country.

To alleviate a portion of the obvious public health hazard, regardless of the source, funding has been allocated, and steps are being taken to divert and treat some of the Mexican wastewater in the U.S. before discharge.^[8]

2 Trois Bassins, Réunion Island, French Territory

The beautiful and tres chic French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean has seen a plague of shark activity since 2011. There have been 19 shark incidents, leaving seven people dead. The incidents have devastated the island’s vital tourism industry. Many surfers have since left the island, relocating to mainland France or Australia, as surfing anywhere in Réunion has become too dangerous.

Several cause and effect hypotheses have been presented for the large increase in shark attacks in Réunion, most of which have occurred on the west coast of the island and have been attributed to a rise in the number of aggressive Bull and TIger sharks.

Previous to 2011, the west coast saw few, if any, shark incidents. None of the cause and effect hypotheses to explain the increase in shark numbers and activity since 2011, such as a no-take zone established on the west coast, have been proven to any degree of scientific certainty. Several solutions have been tried by local authorities to mitigate the shark problem, from the culling of large sharks to shark nets to banning surfing anywhere on the island, also with limited effectiveness.

Surfing, bodyboarding, and ocean swimming in Réunion remain high-risk activities.^[9]

1 Nanwan, Kenting, Pingtung Country, Taiwan ROC

Nanwan is a tourist town located in the Kenting area of southern Taiwan. With many hotels and restaurants in the area, it is extremely popular with people from all over the island for their vacations. There is a very nice sand beach at Nanwan with every sort of beach amenity available for sale or rent—umbrellas, parasailing rides, inner tubes, food, drink, jet skis, massage, beach toys for children, surfboards. You name it, and someone will sell or rent it.

Nanwan can be extremely crowded, and one of the dangerous factors at this beach is from the completely unregulated use of jet skis and other watercraft, as they regularly race up and down directly offshore in close proximity to swimmers. In addition, most of the visitors to the beach at Nanwan have very little if any “ocean sense,” wave experience, or swimming ability, leading to many unfortunate drownings—even in a calm sea with no waves or other ocean hazards.

Another danger factor is that Nanwan is well-positioned to receive ocean groundswell from seasonal typhoons, which makes for good surfing conditions but is very dangerous for many tourist beachgoers. Many of the people at this beach have no experience with ocean waves at all, and the presence of large, powerful groundswell waves often leads to more unfortunate drownings.^[10]

Unfortunately, there are beaches that don’t measure up to our fantasies. Some of the beaches on today’s list are unpleasant places. They get bad press for good reason. 

This topic was suggested by TopTenz fan, dustinsmith93. Thanks, Dustin!

10. Henderson Island, Pitcairn Islands Group, British Overseas Territories

If visiting a beach that’s polluted by a whopping 18 tons of plastic sounds good to you, you may want to plan an excursion to Henderson Island. This isolated island is uninhabited and it is home to sugar-sand beaches, which are unfortunately marred by the presence of plastics and other garbage from Japan, America, and a host of other nations. 

So, how does all of this trash arrive at Henderson Island, which is part of the Pitcairn Islands Groups, which is a British Overseas Territory? Well, Henderson Island, which is a notable marine reserve, has ended up with trash on — and buried inches under — the sands due to a strong ocean current known as the South Pacific gyre. 

This circular current sends debris from international seas directly onto Henderson Island’s shores. Every day 3,500 pieces of garbage end up on the shores.  

This island is at the halfway point between Peru and New Zealand. Right now, experts estimate that 38 million pieces of plastic are present on the island’s beaches. The hermit crabs of Henderson Island have taken to living in plastic containers and birds and other wildlife are consuming plastics. 

Back in the ’80s, the island was a pristine paradise, which earned a World Heritage Site designation, thanks to its unspoiled beauty.

9. Cabrillo Beach (Harbor-Facing Side), Los Angeles, USA

You’ll find Cabrillo Beach in Los Angeles. This beach should be an ideal place to frolic in the water and chill out on the sand, but pollution has made the harbor-facing side of this beach an unappealing destination for city residents and tourists. Cabrillo Beach’s harbor-facing side has the dubious distinction of being one of the USA’s dirtiest beaches. 

The beaches of California are prone to pollution from urban runoff that lands in the ocean, plus rusted septic and sewer systems. Decomposing algae and kelp also contribute to pollution problems. The section of Cabrillo Beach that faces the harbor of San Pedro is subject to all of these issues, and it’s been ranked as one of the most polluted beaches in the Golden State.

Interestingly, the oceanside section of Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro, is in good shape, pollution-wise. This is because the two sides of the beach are separated by a seawall, as well as a long pier. Sadly, the side facing the harbor is anything but pristine, in part because of icky human bacteria that enters the waters through a source that is currently unknown.

If you want to go swimming at Cabrillo Beach, stick to the oceanside area. If you want to swim at a beach that’s known for being one of the cleanest in the region, consider heading for Las Tunas County Beach in Malibu. 

8. Kamilo Beach, Hawaii, USA

This beach used to be stunning and relatively unspoiled. Now, Hawaii’s Kamilo Beach is saddled with two nicknames, “Plastic Beach” and “Trash Beach,” which speak volumes. This beach is off the beaten track and used to be a hidden gem for adventurous beach lovers, who were willing to take 4-wheel drive vehicles down an unpaved road to get there. 

Now, people visit Kamilo Beach to gawk at the astounding amount of garbage that is mixed in with the sand. Some come to help clean it up. The trash on this Hawaii beach really piles up and this trash comes from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” This patch is a collection of marine litter that’s situated in the North Pacific Ocean. 

Kamilo Beach currents are unique and these currents push plenty of things onto the stores, including garbage, logs, and dead animals.

Logs aren’t so common on the shores these days, but an abundance of plastic arrives regularly. Ninety percent of the debris that washes up on the shores is composed of plastic. 

At Kamilo Beach, the sand is dotted with small pieces of bright plastics, many of which have faded a bit because of exposure to the elements. There are also bigger pieces of garbage, such as plastic vats. A lot of the garbage comes from the fishing industry. 

The beach looks terrible. It stands out for the wrong reasons. It’s beach that is a total downer.

7. Juhu Beach, Mumbai, India

Another extremely dirty beach is Juhu Beach in Mumbai, India. It’s mega-polluted. 

This beach isn’t part of an uninhabited island or tucked away in some out-of-the-way location. It’s part of an upscale Mumbai neighborhood where many Bollywood stars choose to live. While people are making a serious effort to clean up Juhu Beach, with some success, the pollution problem is major.

Pollution in the Arabian Sea is rising alarmingly, and an Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay report indicates that there may be more plastic than fish in the sea by the year 2050. According to the report, 50% of plastics that pollute the Arabian Sea have been generated in the past decade. Plastic usage is on the upswing and marine life (and beach-goers) are paying the price.

Hundreds of tons of trash have been removed from Juhu Beach, so it doesn’t look as bad as it used to, but the root issue that leads plastic and other garbage to wash up on the shores, which is rising pollution in the Arabian Sea, means that clean-up efforts will need to be aggressive and ongoing. 

Although the beach can look picturesque sometimes, particularly, after clean-ups, the waters are always intensely polluted.  

As of November 2019, the beach earns an overall rating of 3.5 out of 5 at TripAdvisor. In November 2018, a reviewer described the beach’s waters as “black” due to pollution. In August of 2019, another visitor characterized the beach as a “disgrace” due to its overcrowding and general dirtiness.

People are valiantly trying to make this beach better, but it’s a 24/7 job which is an epic undertaking. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now overseeing clean-up operations, and these operations are changing things for the better. Large machines are needed to get rid of the trash that collects on the beach in the morning.

People who visit the beach may not realize just how polluted the water is, since garbage that washes onto the beach is now being cleaned up faster than it once was. Visitors, and those considering visiting Juhu Beach in the future, do need to know the truth. 

Of course, there are concerned citizens who understand. Some of them are activists who are trying to turn things around.

6. Fujiazhuang Beach, Dalian, China

Do you want to share a beach with 50,000 other people? Probably not, right? This is what you’ll need to do if you decide to spend time at Fujiazhuang Beach in Dalian, China. 

Beaches may be nasty for an array of reasons, including crazy overcrowding. This beach is widely considered to be the most crowded stretch of sand in the world. Visitors are encouraged to avoid swimming if they have skin ailments, or eye diseases, or gastrointestinal problems. They are also supposed to avoid smoking, spitting, and littering. 

Will several tens of thousands of visitors follow all of these instructions? You know the answer.

So, why do people keep flocking to this beach? What is the attraction? Well, it’s a scenic pebble beach. It’s a pretty place, really. 

The overcrowding is worst in summer. During spring, there is a lot more space to move around and enjoy the pretty locale. Unfortunately, the beach is polluted year-round. Food packaging and plastic waste are generated by all of the beach-goers.

This beach also gets a 3.5/5 rating at TripAdvisor (as of November 2019). Some extroverts enjoy the fact that so many people visit the beach during the high season, because it’s a socially vibrant environment, but others hate the overcrowding. People who gave Fujiazhuang Beach poor reviews commented on the fact that the beach’s pebbles were painful to walk on, noted the unpleasant pollution, and remarked that it was hard to see the water because of all of the people.

5. Villa Angela State Park, Ohio, USA

Villa Angela State Park is home to Villa Angela beach, which is connected to Euclid Beach. These beaches are known for having high bacteria levels in their waters. Unfortunately, the bacteria levels tend to stay high, rather than plummeting sometimes. Villa Angela State Park beach and its adjacent Euclid Beach are often unsafe to swim at. 

Some of us expect American beaches to be safer than some international beaches, thanks to the Clean Water Act, but this isn’t always the case. American beaches may be filled with human fecal matter, or other nasty contaminants, just like beaches in undeveloped nations, or beaches in other countries that are developed. 

USA residents, and tourists who visit American destinations, need to understand that American beaches can be hazardous sometimes — or all of the time. Anyone who wants the inside scoop on a beach’s safety should look for official reports before visiting and, especially, before swimming or wading.

So, what’s in the water at Villa Angela State Park in Ohio? Well, this state park’s beach is often filled with fecal matter that contaminates the water and may trigger respiratory illnesses, ear infections, intestinal distress, eye infections, and skin rashes. The main beach at the park is 900 feet in length and it’s a pretty place to be, but the waters are dirty, which is actually the case with many Ohio state beaches.

4. Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia

Beaches situated near this Victoria, Australia bay are places where roughly 800 million pieces of garbage flow into the waters yearly, via a couple of rivers. The situation at Port Phillip Bay beaches highlights the damage that pollution is doing to Melbourne’s coastline. Most of the pollution is plastic garbage, which surges into the bay and threatens the survival of marine life.

Microplastics in the water are a huge issue. These types of plastics are smaller in size than a typical fingernail. Plastic bags also end up in Port Phillip Bay waters. Feces contamination is also sometimes a problem at Port Phillip Bay beaches. Usually, flash flooding is the cause of high contamination from feces.

Port Phillip is home to a lot of beaches, which are generally long, flat, and shallow. These beaches are quite popular with tourists, because they offer gentle conditions for swimming. These beaches aren’t surfing beaches with big, rough waves. 

Unfortunately, some tourists don’t know about all of the pollution in Port Phillip Bay. Popular beaches in this region include Dromana Beach, Sandringham Beach, St. Kilda Beach and Brighton Beach. Some of these beaches fail water quality tests on the regular.

3. Guanabara Bay Beaches, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Guanabara Bay Beaches in Rio land on most lists of the world’s most polluted beaches, including this list. The problem is the untreated human waste that pollutes the water. 

When it comes to swimming in the waters of Guanabara Bay Beaches, strongly reconsider, as local neighborhoods are very short on sanitation, which means that water conditions are terrible, and that nasty microorganisms, and raw sewage, are rife within the water. 

Some people who do swim at Guanabara Bay Beaches live to regret it, because they experience skin irritations and stomach problems afterwards. Athletes, including Olympic rowers, take pains to avoid splashing the bay’s waters on themselves or others. They also disinfect with sanitizing products while they are in their boats. 

A beach shouldn’t make you sick. This beach very well might.

Exposure to pathogens from raw sewage from millions of Rio residents is just the beginning. At this beach, the water is also polluted by industrial waste. There are tons of refineries, pharmaceutical factories and oil and gas operations in the region. A huge amount of industrial wastewater ends up in the bay daily.

These beaches may look beautiful, but they have a dark side that local residents and tourists need to be aware of. If you’re going to hang out at these beaches, maybe don’t go in the water. Stick to a little people-watching and sun-bathing on the sand.

2. Freedom Island, Manila, Philippines

You may not want to load a beach tote or knapsack with towels, sunscreen, the latest juicy, best-selling novel, and drinks, and then head out for a day at the beach at Freedom Island, Manila, Philippines. Freedom Island’s sands are basically buried under piles of trash. 

The Philippines is known for being a big generator of ocean plastic pollution and the garbage dump that Freedom Island has become is testament to the fact that the Philippines needs to reduce ocean plastic pollution as soon as possible. 

The buildup of plastic waste is linked with the development of the sachet packaging craze in the Philippines. Sachets are plastic pouches which are fortified with aluminum layers that provide durability and shape. If you’ve opened a package of ketchup and squeezed the contents onto your french fries, you’ve used a sachet. 

Sachets make life easier for Philippines residents, but this ease and convenience comes with a very heavy environmental price.

This Metro Manila beach is covered in plastic pollution. It’s really pretty horrible.

When waves are vomiting refuse onto the shores, and beaches turn into landfills, we should all be alarmed. It’s happening all over the world, including on Freedom Island.

1. El Gringo Beach, Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic

When a beach earns the unofficial title, “Dominican Chernobyl,” it’s a clear sign that the condition of the beach isn’t exactly safe or inspiring. El Gringo Beach in DR is remarkably filthy and some of its pollution is dangerous, hence its worrisome nickname. 

People who visit El Gringo Beach need to worry about plastic pollution, as well as toxic levels of lead in the soil and sand. The lead comes from an illegal car battery recycling smelter. The car batteries recycled contained lead-acid. That smelter is now abandoned, but activities there caused significant environmental damage.

Those who go to this beach also have to be concerned with other forms of industrial waste that land in the waters and on the shores. Examples of toxins found the Bajos de Haina beach include the aforementioned lead, plus ammonium, formaldehyde, and sulfuric acid. These toxins are generated by oil refineries, manufacturing plants, and power plants in the region.

A non-profit organization called the Blacksmith Institute considers Bajos de Haina, which is home to El Gringo Beach, to be one of the most polluted areas of the planet. Toxins in the area are present in sand, soil, and water, and some of these toxins are also airborne.

Suffice is to say that El Gringo Beach isn’t the ideal location for a leisurely family beach picnic. It’s not the nicest place to go for a dip, either.