Surf Beach lies within Vandenberg Space Force Base, extending south-southwest roughly 4.5 miles (7.3 km) from the mouth of the Santa Ynez River estuary to Spring Canyon, about 31 miles (50 km) south of Pismo Beach and 9 miles (14.5 km) west-northwest of Lompoc, California. The Santa Ynez River originates on the north flank of the Santa Ynez Mountains and flows west for 92 miles (148 km) through the Santa Ynez Valley, draining a watershed of 573,440 acres (232,062 ha). The beach takes its name from the historic community of Surf, a Southern Pacific Railroad station built in 1900 to accommodate personnel maintaining trains and tracks. The town’s population peaked at 40, with most residents employed by the railroad. As trains modernized, Surf depopulated until Southern Pacific operated only a telegraph station there. That station closed in 1985; the unstaffed Surf Amtrak station is now the only remaining structure.

The Chumash, a hunter-gatherer people, inhabited the territory between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific coast. Europeans first made contact in 1542, when the Spaniard Juan Cabrillo visited the area. In 1769 the Portolà expedition camped at the river mouth and named the river. Franciscan missionaries established Mission La Purísima in 1787 near present-day Lompoc, conscripting the Chumash as laborers and baptizing many. After Mexican independence in 1821, mission lands were secularized and land grants awarded to prominent citizens and military veterans. Rancho Lompoc, a grant of 42,085 acres (17,031 ha), was given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Joaquín and José Antonio Carrillo, extending from present-day Lompoc west to the Pacific. Some 30 shipwrecks are recorded along the Surf Beach coast. In 1907, W.A. Boole & Sons of Oakland launched the schooner Sibyl Marston—the largest wooden steam schooner built on America’s West Coast. In 1909, she ran aground in a storm about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the Surf railroad station, carrying 1,100,000 board feet (3,000 cu m) board feet of lumber. Lompoc residents salvaged the wood to start a town lumberyard, and several local houses were built from it. At low tide, portions of the wreck remain visible in the sand. In 1941 the Army acquired roughly 86,000 acres (35,000 ha) of ranch land between Lompoc and Santa Maria for training. In 1956, it transferred 64,000 acres (26,000 ha) to the Air Force as a missile launch and training base—Vandenberg Air Force Base—renamed Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2021.

Sections of Surf Beach close each summer during the nesting season of the western snowy plover, a Pacific Coast resident listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1993 owing to population decline and habitat loss. From March through September, plovers nest along shores, peninsulas, islands, bays, estuaries, and rivers of the Pacific Coast. Nests typically contain three small, sand-camouflaged eggs that are barely visible even to trained observers. Plovers build nests from whatever they find—kelp, driftwood, shells, rocks, even human footprints. Natural predators include falcons, owls, raccoons, and coyotes, while human activity has introduced or boosted populations of additional threats: crows, ravens, red foxes, and domestic dogs. People themselves pose a hazard, driving vehicles, riding bikes, flying kites, and walking dogs on nesting beaches. In 2019, following environmental justice concerns raised by Lompoc community members, the California Coastal Commission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Vandenberg Space Force Base launched an experimental program of designated restricted areas, enabling public access to Surf Beach throughout the summer. Read more here and here. Explore more of Surf Beach and Santa Ynez River here: