Exploring California: Davenport Pier and Shark Fin Cove

Our road trip
We drove ~1.5 hr south of San Francisco on the coast to Davenport. We had our eye on two main locations: Davenport Pier and Shark’s Fin Cove. Many of our road trips have been north of San Francisco, so it was nice to change it up a bit and hang out on the coast by the water. We happened to head down to Davenport on a semi rainy weekend and although easier to drive and walk around in the beach in the sun, the drizzling rain also gave an interesting atmosphere to the two coastal locations. Both Davenport Pier and Shark’s Fin Cove were beautiful; the waves were strong and the sand was soft – we had a great day trip!

What is Davenport Pier?
This is an abandoned pier. There use to be a train that passed by this pier. All that is left are the columns underneath that supported the pier. There are a lot of graffiti on the rocks and remnants of the pier, which made it different from the other beaches and coves. Someone also put a swing on one of the columns underneath, however, it recently broke from the waves crashing into it. There will be times where the closer set of columns will be hard to get to as it might be high tide.

What is Shark Fin Cove?
Just a minute drive away from Davenport Pier is a much more popular cove as it’s easier to get to. It’s a lot easier to climb down to this cove than Davenport Pier (I wore hiking shoes to climb down to Davenport Pier). There are some cool natural structures in this cove. In the middle of the water, there is a giant rock shaped like a shark fin. There is also a little rock tunnel where a bit of water comes through. The waves here are crazy powerful, so make sure to be careful when getting near the water, especially if you are fully clothed and wearing sneakers.

Our trip route

How do you get there?
We got a Maven car, which is 8 USD/hour. The drive is ~1.5 hrs Davenport Pier/Shark Fin Cove  We made it a day trip. The roads are easy to drive as we were pretty much I-280 and CA-1 the entire time.

What should you bring?
I brought flip flops in case I wanted to get in the water and jacket layers. It was raining 50% of time we were there, so we brought an umbrella as well. It would have been a good idea for us to bring extra pants as I unintentionally got soaked by the rain and the powerful waves at Shark Fin Cove.

Recommend?
Yes! It was so much fun and is extremely easy to get to. There were plenty of spots for parking the day we went. The views on the way to these two spots are also amazing. It was a quick day trip and it’s always nice to hang out on the coast. If we had more time, we would have stopped by Santa Cruz, but we would’ve gotten home pretty late.