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

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.

Though nearly 7 years of existence the Montara Beach web site has undergone several design changes. It’s just morphed again, this time taking on a more blog/magazine type feel. It’s easier to read and browse than the last version while retaining it’s environmental tilt. Check it out at montarabeach.com.

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.

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!

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.

This is my latest photographic project, I hope you enjoy my work, I had much fun making it. Big shout out to by buddy/photographer Michael Winokur for lending me his badass Canon 300mm lens. Most of these shots where taken either from Montara Beach or Surfers Beach. Make sure to click on the window and view full screen to get the full effect.

Volunteers gather for the briefing and split into teams.

State Parks Chet Bardo helps dig a post hole

Around twenty volunteers from Montara Dog Walkers, the Coastside Horse Council, Montara Mountain Chain and Sprocket Society and The Montara Beach Coalition joined State Park Rangers to work on various trail maintenance projects this Saturday morning for the first of the rejuvenated ‘Montara Mountain Trail Volunteer Day” meets. After rallying the wife to get up at 7.30 a.m. we walked across the open space to the meeting point by the Martini Creek Bridge. An enthusiastic crowd was gathering ready to get to work. [Read more →]

One of Montara Mountains many trails. Photo ©KStokes 09

I’m passing on a message from Gary of the Montara Mountain Trail Volunteers, please help if you can.

“In the face of budget cuts and their resulting threats to parkland, several people are floating the idea of resurrecting Trail Day (TD). You’ll recall this local effort to put in a few hours, one Saturday morning each month, to help repair the trails, clean up brush and do whatever needs to be done to help maintain McNee Ranch. TD was a terrific community effort and great fun.”

“If you use this incredible resource to hike, bike, walk dogs, ride horses why not give a few hours of easy labor each month to help maintain it?  Even if you don’t use McNee often but value its capacity to preserve nature and give wildlife a place to thrive, please join us. In a real sense, McNee is our commons—we all benefit from it.  How about giving back just a little and getting a lot in return.”

Since then, representatives of the Montara Dog Walkers, the Coastside Horse Council, and the Montara Mountain Chain and Sprocket Society, along with park officials, have met and put together a plan. The consensus is to meet on the first Saturday of each month to join in a community effort to maintain the trails, facilities and other resources at McNee.  With the state’s crushing budget shorfalls, few funds remain to keep the parks from ruin.  We need to step in here if we hope to enjoy continued use of McNee, a valuable community resource for all to enjoy.

Details for the first Trail Day

Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009
Time: 8:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Place: McNee Ranch by the pump house (next to the trail bridge over Martini Creek behind the horse ranch)
What to bring: A thermos of coffee and work gloves
What will be supplied:  Coordinators, tools
What we’ll work on: 1) Trail prep for the rains 2)  Signs – installation and restoration
Transportation: The gate to Hwy 1 will be unlocked, you can drive in and park or better yet, hike or ride a bike

Questions: Contact Gary at poteenspa@gmail.com

We also will have a brief discussion about meeting times and coffee/lunch options for future TD sessions.

Please help if you can, Montara Mountain needs you!

Being a fan of  the main restaurant I was interested to try their new bar/lounge venture out. Four of us ate at Main Street first then moved next door to the lounge for after dinner drinks. The decor is very cool, Asian flavored with modern overtones. Huge chunks of fossilized wood are used for some of the seating, don’t try to lift one you will put your back out!  Only sake and beer is served at the moment as they don’t have a liquor license, but that’s not really a problem. We ordered a plate of the smoked fish to try, it was awesome, the chef smokes his own fish apparently. I applaud the owners for opening on Main Street HMB with the retail doom and gloom reputation this street has we need a  place that can make a go of things, if you are a local please support them by trying the place out, it’s a very cool place to hang.

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

Nancy Korbet's web site, mindbodywardrobe.com

“The way we experience life is directly related to how we see ourselves. Learn how to forgive the flaws and flaunt the fabulous! Discover your personal style and express it with confidence.” –Nancy Korbet

Nancy Korbet was an apparel-marketing professional for over 25 years, she recently founded www.mindbodywardrobe.com to help empower women feel better about themselves and look their best no matter what their body shape, size or age. Nancy has a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Millikin University and lives in Montara with her husband and two fashionably furry friends. But right now she needs to take a break from being a style guru and answer these 10 MontaraLife.com questions:

What inspired you to start your own business?

I started this business while I was still working full time out of a need to do something more meaningful, and it grew from there.

Why mind/body/wardrobe, what’s the link between the three?

The goal of Mind Body Wardrobe is to help women see themselves in a positive light. The mind is the most powerful part of this equation. The mind creates the chatter, “I’m too old, too fat, too wrinkled”, etc. The body is what all the chatter is about. When you get the wardrobe right, you can dissipate the chatter. It doesn’t mean you have to have an extensive collection of clothes, you can do it with a simple, easy wardrobe. The key is to recognize, focus and accentuate your assets. When you get that right, you look in the mirror and see your body in a whole new way, the mind then starts down the positive road of ”Girl… you look Great!”  That is powerful! [Read more →]

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.

©Wildlife Studios

This looks like a great place, I wish them good luck with the studio. Come on all you talented local musicians give these guys some support!

Check out the web site by clicking here.

New studio opens its doors to Coastside musicians : Half Moon Bay Review

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MONTARA makes #6!