Haha, we visited Huntington Beach, too, but I was not super impressed. There were lots of vagrant-y folks hanging around and we tried using the bathrooms to change in and they were filthy with booze bottles in the trash, metal toilets, and they all stunk like they'd been sprayed with urine. I didn't do much research and when we drove from the south going north, I think we passed all of the secluded scenic beaches and when we made it to Huntington, the ample parking and restaurants drew us in. My opinion of it probably wasn't helped by the fact that they were experiencing high and rough surf conditions at the time (saw that later on the local news...) and for the first time in my life I got blindsided by a wave and dragged in then spit out of the ocean! It was a short swim...