Ocean Beach

This guide to Ocean Beach Pier in San Diego is built around the hunt for the green flash, that split-second color at sunset that Celtic sailors once linked to second sight and scientists spent decades dismissing as myth. It follows the physics a British physicist confirmed in 1959, and the pier itself, which opened in 1966 after years of local campaigning for a place to fish. You'll hear about a local photographer who caught the flash in a sharp sequence of frames one January evening in 2017, and what a San Diego astronomer says your real odds are from this rail. Press your palms on the cold rail at the very tip of the pier and watch the last sliver of sun disappear.