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.

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

At the end of Birch Street is a new nursery that has opened its doors for business in Montara. My wife and I paid them a visit today and was pleasantly surprised with the quality and variety of plants for sale. The other advantage with buying plants from a few blocks away is that they are more than likely already acclimatized to the Montara climate. The people are really nice and I wish them all the best in their new venture. Drop by and check them out, maybe buy a plant or two and support your local businesses.

Coastal Cuisine. Gone.

Coming home from work last week hungry and too burnt to cook I decided to swing by The Mavericks Roadhouse and pick up one of their tasty burgers for me and the missus. Imagine my disappointment and frustration to find the place shut, or as the website puts it ‘Gone to the beach’ for the season (in this weather?). WTF? Why? This just says to me that they don’t give a monkeys ass about the local trade, tourists are all they care about. The main road sign has even been pasted over with another sign directing any hungry customers to the mothership HMB brewery. So I now have to wait for Spring for the place to reopen, maybe I’ll go to La Costanera instead, wait, it’s Monday they are shut to. Argh!

The lowly STOP sign

I dunno, call me a busybody or a grumpy old geezer, but I’m getting increasingly annoyed by the driving habits of some of the parents that drop their children off at Farallone School in our community. It’s not the act of making sure the child gets to school so they can get an education and make the world a better place for all, that’s an extremely good thing, nothing is more important. No, what’s getting to me is the disregard by some parents for our communities road signs, in particular the humble STOP sign. The general rule of the road states, and I quote:

“At a stop sign, you must come to a complete stop at the appropriate place. Before proceeding from a stopped position, you must check for pedestrians waiting to cross the street, and yield the right-of-way. When pedestrians are clear, you may slowly move forward for a better view of traffic and, when safe to do so, you may proceed to turn or cross the street.”

Yeah right! I witness time and time again the lowly STOP sign being totally ignored, I mean come on, the poor thing has but one function in life. The least you people can do is follow it’s one word simple instruction, STOP! I’m singling out parents over other road users in this instant because of the precious cargo they carry.  I will now climb down from my soapbox.