About Shoreline Marina
Long Beach's big downtown marina was built for the 1984 Olympic sailing events and never lost the habit — flat, protected water behind the breakwater, with the open Pacific and Catalina a short run away.
A city marina with an Olympic pedigree
Shoreline Marina sits on Queensway Bay in the middle of downtown Long Beach, wedged between the Queen Mary on one side and the Long Beach Convention Center on the other. It's a municipal marina, run by the City of Long Beach Marine Bureau, and it's big — roughly 1,624 slips, which makes it one of the largest marinas on the West Coast. The city opened it in 1982 and built it out to serve as the base for the sailing competitions of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Four decades later it's still the recreational heart of the downtown waterfront.
The docks are classic wood, with water, power, and a lockable dock box at every berth. Slips run from 25 to 90 feet, with side-tie space for vessels up to 160 feet and about nine feet of depth at the dock. This is a lived-in harbor: a substantial liveaboard community shares the gangways with weekend sailors and cruisers, and the marina keeps mailboxes and on-site laundry for the people who call it home. Boaters describe it as well kept — the marina has earned the National Gold Medal Award — and the waitlist for a slip is famously long.
Flat, protected water behind the breakwater, open ocean minutes from the slip — the same combination that brought the Olympics here in 1984.
Boating from Queensway Bay
The geography here is the whole argument. The marina sits in a natural south-facing bay behind the offshore Long Beach breakwater, so the water inside stays calm year-round — some of the most protected big-water conditions in Southern California — while the open ocean is only minutes from your slip. That combination of flat water, reliable prevailing winds, and quick ocean access is why Long Beach has hosted the Congressional Cup match-racing regatta, Transpac starts, Olympic trial races, and the 1984 Olympic sailing events themselves.
Catalina Island is the classic destination, a straightforward run across the channel. Closer to home, the coastline offers day trips toward the Los Angeles Harbor complex, Alamitos Bay, and the Orange County harbors. The practical side is handled: the marina's own staffed fuel dock at 700 E. Shoreline Drive pumps gasoline and diesel daily from 8 to 5, and sells boating supplies, sandwiches, and bait while it's at it. Free pump-out stations are scattered through the basins and accessible around the clock.
One thing to know: there's no public launch ramp at Shoreline Marina — this is a slip-and-guest-dock facility. Visiting boaters can use the city's roughly 3,000 feet of year-round guest mooring, and adjacent Rainbow Harbor offers three-hour free public docking, which puts the Aquarium, the Shoreline Village restaurants, and all of downtown within a short walk of a courtesy tie-up.
Life around the docks
Step off your boat and you're in the middle of things. The Cape Cod-styled Shoreline Village shopping and dining district sits right at the marina's edge, with an antique carousel, harbor cruises, and Parkers' Lighthouse — the landmark seafood house with mesquite-grilled fish and harbor-view patios. The Aquarium of the Pacific is a short walk around Rainbow Harbor, and the Queen Mary's three red-orange funnels stand directly across the bay. This is more city-harbor energy than sleepy yacht club: aquarium crowds, waterfront restaurants, and a forest of masts against the downtown skyline.
The shoreline carries its history lightly. The little white lighthouse overlooking the basin from Shoreline Park isn't historic at all — the Downtown Lions Club completed it in 2000 as a decorative landmark. Nearby, the park's memorial flagpole bears the names of 74 Navy sailors lost when the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was cut in half in a 1969 collision. And before any of this existed, this stretch of waterfront was home to The Pike, a massive amusement park; today's Rainbow Harbor and Shoreline Village occupy the reimagined shoreline. Marina Shipyard and the Shoreline Yacht Club round out the boating community.
