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Note: A 1.75-mile long strip between Belmont Pier and 3rd Place was closed temporarily on June 18 due to contamination from a sewage spill.

This city beach has everything you might expect at a beach except waves. The lengthy breakwater, which lies two to three miles offshore, muffles most of the wave action, making this a great shore for swimming and sailing but lousy for surfing. Only the far south end from Belmont Shore to the tip of the Alamitos Bay peninsula gets limited surf, which slips in through a gap between the end of the breakwater and the bay entrance jetty.

Near downtown is Shoreline Village, a charming commercial area of more than 30 specialty shops, boutiques, galleries, restaurants and an ornate carrousel. It is just off Shoreline Drive, which every April becomes a roaring racetrack for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Its promoter once called it the world's only 200-m.p.h. beach party. For seafood with atmosphere, try Parker's Lighthouse, the big building on the point with obvious architecture. From October through March, the lighthouse dock is the home port for the Californian, a tall-masted sailing ship which is available for charter. The ship is based in Monterey in summer.

There are likely to be lots of sailboats offshore, because this city has five yacht clubs and an estimated 4,000 boats, counting all its marinas. Regattas are held frequently. And no wonder, Long Beach was the sailing venue for the 1984 Olympics.

Out among the sailboats are four disguised oil islands but you might not recognize them. They look more like little offshore resorts with hotels, especially at night when splashed with colored lights. The islands are about 10 acres each and are landscaped with decorative rocks, waterfalls, palm trees and facades to hide the drill towers.

The four oil islands are a tribute to American space pioneers. The three closest to shore are named (from west to east) for astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee, who were killed Jan. 27, 1967, in a fire aboard Apollo 1 on the ground at Cape Kennedy, Fla. The fourth island, farther out and in line with Island White, is named for Theodore C. Freeman, who was killed in a training jet accident Oct. 31, 1964. He was an Air Force captain and part of the astronaut program but never flew in space.

Long Beach has a perpetual problem with debris on its beach. The Los Angeles River empties near downtown in a curving pattern so that junk washed downstream tends to collect inside the breakwater and drift back up on shore. At the south end of town is the San Gabriel River, which probably carries less trash but what trash there is also gets pushed back to shore by south swells slipping past the breakwater. After a storm, the beaches collect literally tons of debris. It takes bulldozers and dump trucks to pile it up and haul it away. The city is faithful at cleanup but patience is wearing thin, and officials have studied more than a few proposals to stem the flow of flotsam and jetsam from the messy metropolis upstream. -- Los Angeles Times