It was not a nude beach and my friends and I did not go nude, but there were several other people who were nude. It was apparent that the skinny dippers were having a good time and didn't care who else saw them. This was a completely new concept for me. There was no "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" quid pro quo, which is the way I understood nudist parks to function. The attitude was "I'm going nude because I enjoy it and everyone else can just deal with it."
I did not go nude that day because I did not know what the attitude of my friends would be toward it. It wasn't until a couple of years later when I had access to a car that I went to Bonny Doon Beach just north of Santa Cruz. I had gone alone that day but there were plenty of other people on the beach and most of them were nude. I didn't have any major anxieties about taking my clothes off, but I was reassured to find that nobody was laughing and pointing and that I didn't have any problems suppressing my level of arousal. I found that within a couple of minutes I was able to relax and just enjoy being on the beach. There were a whole new series of pleasant sensations such feeling the sun and the breeze all over my body and running along the beach and jumping in the water without a soggy bathing suit. The experience lived up to my expectations. Thereafter, I would visit nude beaches a few times each summer whenever the opportunity availed itself.
I eventually married a very proper lady who I met at church. I assumed at the time that we got engaged that I would be giving up nude beaches forever. Then, she told me about how she and her sister grew up skinny dipping in their backyard swimming pool. A few months after we were married, I took my wife to Red, White, & Blue Beach in California. It was her first time nude on a beach and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Now when we go on vacation, we seek out nude beaches and prefer to stay at nudist resorts. We now have a backyard swimming pool and use swimsuits only when we have visitors.