Do you ever long for an honest opinion about the best beaches? In OC, people say the beaches are nice, but everybody has a favorite place...and Dubai ranks high.

How do Orange County beaches stack up?  People love the weather best. The water's a bit chilly, they say, though they don't mind summers when the temps hit around 70 degrees F.  The video from OC Beaches above shows a guy who's been to Dubai, his favorite beach.  He said the weather is spectacular, the sand is soft and white...almost like powder (wow!)  And the water temperature is warm...it's almost like a bath.  In fact, they have shark nets.  Sharks have taken a liking to humans, finding them tasty. 

The shark bites at Orange County beaches are extremely rare.  Occasionally a surfer will have their board chomped into by a shark but that doesn't happen very often either.

How do Dubai beaches stack up to OC beaches?

Dubai beaches have softer sand and the water is turquoise:  Dubai has a number of excellent beaches along Jumeira Road. Divided by hotels and private clubs, . The Jumeira beaches offer public access beaches with soft white sand, and shallow warm water in the Arabian Gulf.

Orange County California beaches have coarser, medium colored sand. The water ranges from green to deep blue, to deep aqua. OC beaches are mostly public, with a few areas with homes such as Newport Beach's Emerald Cove obstructing the access to the public beach below. The ocean shelf is deeper and the water is colder.

Dubai is located on the Eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, in the South West corner of the Arabian Gulf.

Orange County is located on the Western coast of the United States near the southern border of the country, with beaches located on the Pacific Ocean.

Weather: Dubai enjoys 365 days of warm sunshine, with cooler evenings and occasional showers in the months between November to March. Orange County has over 320 days of sunshine with cooler evenings and rare (occasional rain) in the months between November and March (very similar). Temperatures in Dubai are slightly warmer and more humid than Orange County. Temps range from 50 degrees (10 degree Celsius) low to 104 (40 C.). Orange County temps range from 42 low to 95 high and on rare occasion (one or two days per year) the weather may top 100.  Average summer temps are around 76 in Orange County.

Rain: While Dubai is arid with little rainfall  (13 centimetres) or 5 inches per year, Orange County is also an arrid, semi-desert region with normally 11 inches of rain, though in 2007, the rainfall to July was the lowest on history with around 3 inches (7 cenitmetres).

Population: Dubai is home to a little less than 1 million residents with 79% of the population employed. Orange County is home to around 3 million population with around 75% of the population employed.