shaped, forming Drake's Bay. Continuing south, the coastline is variable in 

 character, including near -vertical offshore rocks and cliffs as seen at Bolinas 

 (05500) to sandy beaches such as at Stinson Beach State Park (05022) . 



The initial segment of the San Mateo County shoreline is made up of steep 

 sea cliffs overlooking small, flat, sandy beaches such as exists at the Thornton 

 Beach State Park (05002) site. The shoreline south of Pillar Point forms a 

 hook-shaped bay and contains the town of Half Moon Bay and the Francis Beach 

 (05003) site. 



Santa Cruz County has a shoreline 42 miles (67 kilometers) long. The 

 northern half of the coast is rocky with a few small sandy beaches. To the 

 south, a few miles below the town of Santa Cruz, the shoreline character changes 

 to wide sandy beaches devoted mostly to recreational use; several small pocket 

 beaches are also along the coastline. LEO sites were established at Natural 

 Bridges (05004), Twin Lakes (05005), Capitola (05367), New Brighton (05001), 

 Sea Cliff (05006), and Sunset (05007). 



IV. DATA COLLECTION AND STANDARD ANALYSES 



1. Variables Measured . 



Based on the results of the pilot study at New Brighton State Beach, the 

 following littoral variables were selected for observation: 



(a) Wave conditions including breaker height, period, direction, 

 and breaker type (i.e., plunging, spilling, surging or spill-plunge); 



(b) wind speed and direction; 



(c) littoral current speed and direction; 



(d) beach foreshore slope (in some cases other beach dimensions 

 such as berm width, etc., were also determined); 



(e) tide level; 



(f) water temperature; 



(g) rip current spacings if rip currents are present; 



(h) beach cusp spacings if beach cusps are present; and 



(i) monthly photos, sand samples, and comments describing beach 

 conditions and other events. 



Surf and wind measurements, beach dimensions, rip currents, beach cusps, and 

 water temperature were measured twice a day; photos and sand samples were taken 

 once a month. An analysis of the LEO data collected during 1968 was presented 

 by Szuwalski (1970) . 



The current LEO program includes estimates of breaker height and period, 

 direction, and breaker type in the surf observations. Period is determined 

 by measuring the time of passage past a fixed point of 10 consecutive breakers. 



