Coast Guard Pier - Sea Lion Central

Photo: (c) Jonathan Eisen, some rights reserved (CC BY), CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on Monterey Cannery Row and Waterfront, a free self-guided tour.

Listen before you look. That chorus of barks and grunts comes from California sea lions hauled out on the rocks of the breakwater at the end of this pier. The breakwater, about 1,700 feet long, was built in the early 1930s to shelter the harbor, and the sea lions quickly claimed it. On busy days hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand, crowd the rocks and water.

Their numbers peak from fall through spring. In summer many adult males head south to breeding colonies, so the crowd thins out. Look for the shaggy, thick-necked males, the smaller sleek females, and the youngsters playing in the water.

The pier is also home port for a Coast Guard cutter, so stay out of posted areas. Please keep a respectful distance and never feed or approach the animals; sea lions are wild, strong and protected by federal law.

Getting here: Keep walking along the trail to the pier that juts out toward the breakwater; walk out along the pier toward the sound of barking.

Did you know?: In August 2025 so many sea lions moved onto nearby San Carlos Beach that the city closed the beach to people until they left.

Photo op: From the pier rail, zoom in on the breakwater rocks to catch the sea lions piled together with the bay behind them.

More on Wikipedia: California sea lion · United States Coast Guard

Coast Guard Pier - Sea Lion Central

Stops on this tour