Twelve miles south of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria State Beach offers a mile of beach for swimming, surf fishing, tidepool exploring and camping. Although dogs are not allowed on beach we have a great picnic area where they are allowed to enjoy the outdoors as well. Lifeguards patrol the beach year round while lifeguard towers are staffed roughly from memorial day weekend through labor day weekend. The Spanish named the area Carpinteria because the Chumash tribe, which lived in the area, had a large seagoing canoe-building enterprise, or 'carpentry shop' there, because of naturally-occurring surface tar which was used to seal the boats. Seals and sea lions can be seen in the area December through May, as well as an occasional gray whale. Tidepools contain starfish, sea anemones, crabs, snails, octopi and sea urchins.