An App to Help You Prove the Beach You're Standing On Is Public

Decades-old California law is quite precise about who owns the state's spectacular coastline: Everything below the mean high tide line over the previous 18.6 years belongs to the public. That means, in effect, that everyone has a right to walk on wet sand, anywhere (OK, outside of the boundaries of a few military installations). "There’s no such thing as an all-private beach in California," says Jenny Price, a writer, artist and environmental historian who lives on Venice Beach.

The California Coastal Act, crafted in the 1970s, has since tried to enforce that standard, protecting both the coastal environment and the public's access to it. But by the time the act was passed, two-thirds of the state's shore was already walled off behind private development, with locked gates between homes sealing off access to the wet sand beyond. In tony Malibu, just west of Los Angeles, 20 miles of the 27-mile coast are lined like this with what Price calls a "fortress" of private development – much of it plastered with disingenuous signs projecting the impression of a thoroughly private beach.