Why does SLO County have a nude beach? Here’s the hidden history of Pirate’s Cove
For more than 150 years, San Luis Obispo County’s only clothing-optional beach has invited its share of rumors.
Stories of swashbuckling pirates, hidden jewels and gold and smuggled goods are all embedded into the lore surrounding Pirate’s Cove in Avila Beach.
“It is said that in the early days of Mexican rule Cave Landing was a haunt of bully buccaneers, who held high revel there and in the sandy floor of the romantic cave it is said they buried their rich treasure,” the San Luis Obispo Semi-Weekly Breeze reported in 1901.
Today, the cozy cove is best known for nudists who bare it all on the beach.
On a sunny July afternoon at Pirate’s Cove in Avila Beach, sea lions — the Peeping Toms of Pirate’s Cove — poked their heads out of the bay and pelicans dove into the waves to scoop up a mouthful of fish.
Cannabis fumes wafted through the air as two friends smoked in the mouth of Cave’s Landing, while a group of guys hauled down fishing poles, hoping to reel in some seafood for dinner.
On the south end of the beach, a handful of nude sunbathers were scattered across the sand.
One man sporting nothing but his birthday suit walked the length of the beach before diving into the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. Nearby a topless woman on a towel worked on her tan while listening to music.
For several decades, nudity has been the norm for many visitors at the area’s most famous clothing-optional beach.
How did the popular local spot evolve from a wharf with wild tales of bold buccaneers into a safe space for beachgoers in the buff?
Here’s the history behind Pirate’s Cove.
Did pirates ever visit SLO County beach?
The sandy Avila Beach strand now known as Pirate’s Cove didn’t always go by that name.
The cove was originally called Mallagh’s Wharf after Capt. David Mallagh who constructed the county’s first wharf in 1855 at the spot, according to the book “Looking Back Into the Middle Kingdom: San Luis Obispo County” by Cal Poly emeritus history professor Dan Krieger.
It was also known as Cave Landing — the name of the natural arch shaping a spacious cave that sits on a cliff just north of the cove.
In its heyday, the cove was a major thoroughfare for cargo and passenger steamships arriving in Avila Beach, according to Visit Avila Beach’s website.
Pirate’s Cove was used as far back as the Mexican and early American periods of the United States for trading supplies with other ships, according to Mark-Hall Patton, former director of the History Center of San Luis Obispo County.
“The ship would send in its longboats and ferry people and materials between the shore and the ships,” at Cave Landing, Hall-Patton wrote in a 1989 article in the South County Tribune.
In the 1920s, the cove became a secret spot for transporting illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Large cases of liquor were hauled ashore by thirsty bootleggers looking to sell the banned substance.
“Smugglers used the port for illegal nighttime movement of liquor,” the Port of San Luis Harbor District said on its website. “The G-men had a hard time catching the persons involved as it was a community effort and outsiders were not welcome.”
Despite its status as a prominent destination for smugglers, Pirate’s Cove lacks any historical evidence that pirates ever ventured there.
“Piracy really sort of invokes the Errol Flynn swashbuckling, and that just never happened,” said Thomas Kessler, executive director for the History Center of San Luis Obispo County.
Any rumors of buried treasure in the cove were also made up, he told The Tribune.
A more apt name would have been Smuggler’s Cove, Kessler said, but instead people began referring to it Pirate’s Cove in the 1960s.
Locals love going nude at Pirate’s Cove in Avila Beach
According to Kessler, the Pirate’s Cove moniker took hold around the same time nudists started to flock there.
It’s unclear why folks began getting naked at Pirate’s Cove, but local newspapers reported that it was a common phenomenon by the 1970s.
A 1977 article in the Five Cities Times-Press-Recorder detailed how more than a dozen nude sunbathers came to the rescue of a sailor whose boat had smashed against the rocks at Pirate’s Cove.
In 1988, an undressed, unnamed couple at Pirate’s Cove said they had been stripping at the beach since the 1970s, around the same time hippies began “going skinny-dipping,” the Telegram-Tribune reported at the time.
That same year, nudity was nearly banned at the beach when the city of Pismo Beach considered annexing the cove, the Telegram-Tribune reported.
“For years (the clothing-optional practice) has been tolerated but not condoned by the neighboring city of Pismo Beach,” the Telegram-Tribune reported. “But now Pismo officials are talking about taking control and forcing an exchange of bathing suits for birthday suits.”
However, the annexation threat never came to pass, with bare beachgoers continuing to throng to the local cove.
Cave Landing parking lot, path get upgrades
Pirate’s Cove officially joined San Luis Obispo County’s park system in 2013, according to previous reporting from The Tribune.
The 27-acre parcel acquisition included the clothing-optional beach and the historic Cave Landing site.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors’ decision to accept the acquisition paved the way for a million-dollar upgrade of the site as a recreational facility.
However, there was a decade of delays before the improvements became a reality. In the meantime, trash, broken glass, beer cans and graffiti consistently littered the area, particular on the bluffs above the cove.
The Pirate’s Cove parking lot finally received an $1.1 million upgrade in May 2024, according to previous Tribune reporting.
County workers added trash cans, improved access to the Cave Landing parking area and built a new accessible path to a lookout point.
The parking lot was also upgraded to have a capacity for 73 cars.
What’s sunbathing like at area’s only clothing-optional beach?
Those seeking a tan-line-free experience can still strip on the beach in 2025.
On Wednesday, July 16, Pismo Beach resident Jahnavi Delgado was catching some rays while topless at Pirate’s Cove.
She said sunning the upper half of her body was “medicine” to help heal her chronic health issues.
“I need stillness, groundedness and quiet and this place provides all of those things,” she said.
Delgado, who moved from Mississippi to Pismo Beach in 2020, has been coming to the cove a couple of times a month for the past five years.
Delgado was driving up and down the Central Coast on the hunt for perfect beaches when she caught sight of naked people in Pirate’s Cove.
Delgado said she’s been sunbathing on the beach there ever since, although she said it took some time getting comfortable stripping down to a bare chest.
At first, she worried about being seen by people she knew, but now she’s comfortable getting partially nude in the sunlight. She likened it to “popping a cherry.”
“It’s my choice, my freedom and I’m doing what I want,” she told The Tribune.
Over the past five years, Delgado said she’s seen a cast of characters flaunting their birthday suits, ranging from little kids to elderly people.
For the most part, people are “incredibly respectful,” she said.
How to visit Pirate’s Cove
The Pirate’s Cove Beach parking lot is located at the end of Cave Landing Road in Avila Beach.
Parking is free for all visitors.
You can venture down to the beach by walking down a steep dirt pathway on the south end of the parking lot.
