Location: Grey Whale Cove. Time 12.00-2.00pm. Please turn up to help clean this much neglected but stunningly beautiful beach. The guys from Surfrider do a fantastic job, please support them, I think they are giving away free Tshirts as well!

California Coastal Cleanup Day is the premier volunteer event focused on the marine environment in the country. In 2009, more than 80,600 volunteers worked together to collect more than 1,300,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways. California Coastal Cleanup Day has been hailed by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the largest garbage collection” (1993). Since the program started in 1985, over 800,000 Californians have removed more than 14 million pounds of debris from our state’s shorelines and coast. When combined with the International Coastal Cleanup, organized by The Ocean Conservancy and taking place on the same day, California Coastal Cleanup Day becomes part of one of the largest volunteer events of the year.

Coastal Cleanup Day is the highlight of the California Coastal Commission’s year ’round Adopt-A-Beach program and takes place every year on the third Saturday of September, from 9 a.m. to Noon. (The 2010 Cleanup will take place on the fourth Saturday of September so as not to conflict with Yom Kippur.) Coming at the end of the summer beach season and right near the start of the school year, Coastal Cleanup Day is a great way for families, students, service groups, and neighbors to join together, take care of our fragile marine environment, show community support for our shared natural resources, learn about the impacts of marine debris and how we can prevent them, and to have fun! Coastal Cleanup Day is also the kick-off event for Coastweeks—three weeks of coastal and water-related events for the whole family.

Participating in Coastal Cleanup Day is as easy as 1, 2, 3! Pre-register with your local Coordinator, simply show up at any of the drop-in sites, or find your nearest site here.

Montara’s Clean up crew will meet as usual in the Northern dirt parking lot at 9.00am on Saturday September 25th, see you there! More details on the Montara Beach Coalition website.

The San Mateo County chapter of Surfrider is holding a beach cleanup on Saturday, July 10, 2010 from 12:00PM – 2:00PM at Montara beach. Please help if you can. Full details can be found on the Surfrider web site

We had a fantastic turn out for the event! Over 75 people gathered at Montara Beach to join the 900 global locations to say NO to off shore drilling, and YES to cleaner energy sources. Thanks to everyone for joining us and a big shout out also to Lynn Adams of the Pacifica Beach Coalition, Paul Hobi of the Ocean Conservancy, April Vargas and the guys from ‘below the surface’ who paddled up from Mavericks to join us!

This event takes place this Saturday June 26th at multiple locations across the plant. You can join in by being at Montara State Beach at 11.00am, at midday we will join hands to form a protest line in the sand to say NO to off shore drilling, and YES to clean energy. Wear black to represent the tar balls on the beaches in the Gulf. You can get full details at the Montara Beach Coalition web site or the official ‘Hands Across the Sand’ site. See you there, bring your friends

I took these shots on Winterton Beach in Norfolk, England last week, even though they are 6000 miles from California they feel strangely familiar. To my mind a spell is cast wherever sea or ocean meets land.

I took this video on Sunday morning, extremely high tide, many sneaker waves washing in. Several people nearly got washed out while trying to take photos. Note the amount of sand moved on the beach, the stairs and life ring station are half buried under sand.

I saw this video on coastsider.com and had to share.

Montara Beach Report 2/9 from Kevin Stokes (Coastsider) on Vimeo.

A short video report showing the damage to the sandstone bluffs on Montara Beach sustained during the recent high tides and winter storms.

Styrofoam covers a Pacifica Beach. Photo © Ian Butler

This problem just gets worse and worse, we must enforce a styrofoam ban NOW. Make your voice heard by clicking here. Take a look at John Mayburys Peninsula Coastside Blog entry by clicking here.

A while back I started to bug my good friend guitarist Mike McCall to write an instrumental song with Montara Beach as a theme, the reason being that I wanted to shoot some video of the beach and set a soundtrack to it. He came up with a beautiful original Spanish flavored piece called simply ‘Montara Song’. So this weekend I finally got around to filming and editing, I hope you enjoy it.

Click this link Montara Song to view the original Music video. © Music & film – Mike McCall & Kevin Stokes 2009

Stop stealing them!

This time of year is my favorite time to enjoy the beach. Warm(ish), blustery and fresh all at the same time. The surf looks like gigantic wild white horses galloping toward shore as I take my stroll North up the beach, the large swell has the tow-in crowd at Mavericks getting all the pre-competition practice they can. The beach is real steep at the surf line, carved out deep by the relentless pounding waves. This combination of a steep shore and big surf can be lethal (the tragic loss of the Mother and daughter is still fresh in my mind) yet some  parents still foolishly allow their children to play in or near the surf line, choosing to ignore the posted warnings at the foot of the stairs.

As the day wears on the light becomes so beautiful I can’t resist going home to get my camera check out some of the shots in the gallery section. I know these are black and white but I’ll get around to posting the color ones soon.

After the tragic loss by drowning of a Mother and daughter several months ago at Montara State Beach an anonymous person donated two life Rings with 60ft rope tethers to be used in the event of a water rescue at Montara. The two rings were mounted on the back of the dangerous surf warning sign. A couple of months back one of these potential lifesavers went missing, presumed stolen. It was immediately replaced by the donor, now it’s happened again. I hope that who ever is removing these rescue devices is never put in the situation where themselves or a member of their friends or family could have been saved by one of the missing life rings. If anyone sees any safety equipment being stolen please call the sheriff, it could save a life.

Surfers Beach in miniature. ©KStokes 09

Playing around in Photoshop, I love the ‘Tilt Shift’ lens effect , looks like a tiny model scene. Click the photo to view full size and get the full effect.

Grey Whale Cove bare butt cheek visitors beware!

State lets parks crack down on nude beachgoers.

Explorer – Just Outside San Francisco, a Wild Coastline – NYTimes.com.

Looks like we made it in to the travel section of the New York Times.

The floodlit entrance

We were lucky enough to get an invitation to the ’soft’ opening of the new Peruvian restaurant on Friday night. The official ‘Grand Opening’ for the general public is next Friday. We were warned that as this was the first live run of the new kitchen and staff so be prepared for some hiccups. Our party of six was welcomed at the door by two hostesses and we were seated in the middle of the floor in front of the open kitchen. As we looked around we recognized many Montara local faces, and waved and said hi. Shortly after we were seated, our server Luigi brought us a tray of Pisco sours to try, ‘it’s the Peruvian equivalent of a margarita’ he said, delicious. Our cocktail was swiftly followed by a dazzling array of appetizer plates delivered by more servers dressed head to toe in black. If this was a test run I can’t wait to try the food when they really have it dialed in! It was delicious, our group was truly blown away by the freshness and quality of the food. Seafood cooked to perfection and spicy hot ceviche so fresh that I expected it to jump off the plate and flap around on the table. [Read more →]

Litterbugs are strange creatures, they come from all cultures, can be male or female, young or old. They are for the most part just like me and you, they also look just like me and you. If you walked past a litterbug in the street you would not be able to tell them apart from any other person on that street, they look pretty normal. They like to eat food, drink soda and smoke cigarettes. They go to work, like walks in the park, bike rides and sunny days on the beach. Litterbugs share many things with regular everyday people, that is until they are required to perform one very specific function. This seemingly simple task exposes the litterbug for what they really are. What is it you ask? What is this task? Why are you singling out the litterbug for attack?Listen, litterbugs are very different from me and you, let me explain how and why. Let’s start by classifying the different types of litterbug. I’m going to concentrate today on a particularly nasty and prevalent type, Idontcare leavemyshitanywhereus more universally known as the beach litterbug most commonly found on hot sunny days around the coast, very rarely seen in the winter months. These creatures normally migrate great distances to visit the beach with their offspring in the Summer season. [Read more →]