If you can make it, swing on by Bay Book, Half Moon Bay, 7 p.m.
Half Moon Bay: 5 Bookstores & Not A Borders or Barnes & Noble Among Them
Who says Independent bookstores can’t survive?
There are five bookstores to choose from on the Half Moon Bay Coastside, each with a different personality.
Inga and Jules Sofer pose in front Coastside Books & Cards
When I first moved here in the 1970s, there was one bookstore called Coastside Books, located in an old house on Kelly Ave, near Highway 1. The proprietors were Diane and Richard Gates, an attractive and intellectual young couple. [Friends tell me Richard still lives on the Coasstside but he doesnât use email.]
In the late 1970s Inga and Jules Sofer bought the Gatesâ Coastside Books and moved with the store several times, always seeking a more comfortable location, from Kelly Ave to Main Street, where at one point they were neighbors of Elizabeth McCaugheyâs tea and coffee shop.
When my âHalf Moon Bay Memories: The Coastsideâs Colorful Pastâ? book was published in 1978, Inga hosted a booksigning at her shop [after a gallery run by Randall Reid on Kelly Ave hosted the first one] then located in one of Half Moon Bayâs old style Main Street house.
I know this: When you talk to Inga you feel like youâre sharing words with a close friend. Her smile is warm and genuine, her wit right on target. She knows writers, local and international, and sheâs blunt when judging these artists.
And when it comes to finding extraordinary greeting cards, the kind you pen a special note on, Inga has superb taste. Iâve never seen a finer selection of artistic cards anywhere.
Inga remains the moving force and husband Jules is always supportive and friendly. I saw them today and its always a great pleasure to visit with these professionals.
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I’ve known Bay Book’s Kevin Magee just as long as I’ve known Inga and Jules Sofer. By “knowing,” I mean all these folks are professional booksellers.
But they are good in different ways. While Inga’s style is more intimate, Kevin is more outgoing.
As I recollect, I first met Kevin at a bookshop he owned in San Carlos; this would be around the time my “Half Moon Bay Memories: The Coastside’s Colorful Past” was published. He at once impressed me as a go getter, as enthusiastic about his shelves and tables of books as he was about selling them to his customers.
He’s a Coastside native with a keen knowledge of history, anxious to share all he knows. If you need a book, he gets it quick and his loyal staff are book lovers, too.
In Half Moon Bay, Bay Book was first located in a “shopping center” on the east side of Highway 1 before Kevin settled into his longtime location at the Strawflower Shopping Center.
This Friday, December 14 at 7 pm, Bay Book will be hosting a booksigning for my new book, “Princeton-by-the-Sea.”
Kirk works at Moon News Bookstore, 315 Main Street, Half Moon Bay–conveniently located next door to the Pasta Moon, one of the Coastside’s finest restaurants.
Mark Sipowicz owns Moon News Bookstore–and yes, his name is spelled the same as the hard-boiled Detective Andy Sipowicz on the long running NYPD Blue tv show. But the resemblance ends there.
Mark owns a bookstore that everybody I know says has been attractively set up–it may be the “perfectly” designed bookstore– a pleasure to browse around and to easily find the right book.
The store is located next door to the Pasta Moon Restaurant, and after a delicious lunch or dinner, accented with wine, there is nothing more delightful than walking into Moon News and scanning newspapers from all over the world as well as the latest book titles.
Photo: Ronda Quain helps customers looking for all kinds of used books at Ocean Books at 416 Main Street (650.726.2665) in Half Moon Bay. The store is located in the center of the shopping district, near restaurants and boutiques.
Whenever I walk by Ocean Books, I always check out the titles displayed in the window. Thatâs where the books I missed the first time around are, and Iâm always surprisedâ Iâll point and say to Burt, âLook! Thereâs a book about the history of wine, modern architecture or a great mystery story I always wanted to readâcollector items as well.
Ocean Books is chocked full of used books, all in fine condition, paperbacks and clothbound. Thatâs their specialty and if thereâs book thatâs hard to find, theyâll try to get it.
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Inkspell is new to me as a bookstore–located in the historic Half Moon Bay Mercantile Building at 500 Purissima Street (650.726.65711) in Half Moon Bay, next door to the quirky cafe called La Di Da.
When I came here in the 1970s, the Mercantile Building housed a meat market. Across the way stood the Half Moon Bay Post Office, then very small, and even earlier that location belonged to the two-story Occidental Hotel (where the stagecoach dropped passengers off in the 1890s.)
We often park near Inkspell and I always look at the window display, filled with best-selling books as well games and children’s toys…
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more coming……
Michael Bowen’s “Hot Day In France”………
“Hot Day In France” by internationally renowned painter Michael Bowen, who, in the late 1950s lived at Tunitas Creek and the Abalone Factory at Princeton-by-the-Sea. Michael’s in my new book, “Princeton-by-the-Sea,” published by Arcadia.
The Princeton-by-the-Sea…In My Mind…
For many Coastsiders— Princeton-by-the-Sea— lives on in a special cove in the mindâa space carefully protected from invasions of the ordinary.
In todayâs world where new American cities and towns are designed in advance, all identical, with no surprises, no serendipity, Princeton-by-the-Sea has been the antithesis of suburbia and thatâs why we love it.
Ordinary has never applied to Princeton-by-the-Sea.
There were times when Princeton reminded me of my disorganized closet or messy garage–Iâm referring to the streets named for Ivy League universities, lined with endearing homemade architecture– interspersed with hundreds of crab traps and decaying fishing boats.
When I crossed Highway 1 (from suburbia on the east side), I happily walked westward into another dimensionâit was a great place for a kid to grow up, the oldtimers told me. Example: In the 1940s if you needed a stick of furniture, Mr. Patroni, the owner of a local hotel, said, âYou can borrow a chest of drawers from my roadhouse.â?
âPrinceton-by-the-Seaâ? is a place, unlike most places, that has been known by many other colorful names: Whalers Cove, Patronis, Small Cannery Row, Idaâs, Hazelâs, the Drag Strip, the Abalone Factory, the Point Beyond, and more recently, Mavericks and the Golf Ball.
Oh, yes and a name that didnât stick was âthe Polynesian Village.â?
Some of the Half Moon Bay kids raced their cars up the hill to Pillar Point before the radar station appeared, laughing as their tires kicked up clods of dirt, feeling a rush of adrenaline up there, high above the Pacific.
Every so often, the owner of Pillar Point would drive down from San Francisco to check on his property [yes, there was an owner, reportedly a descendant of a ranchero]– and upon spotting the juvenile trespassers, wagged his finger and chased them away.
A couple of generations later, the Coastsideâs teenagers ventured out to what they called âBeyond the Point,â? where, alone, during the winter months, they stood, mesmerized by the crazy surf and the wall of 60 foot wavesâ¦..
Treasured snapshots and the “Princeton-by-the-Sea” in my mind.
I have derived immeasurable pleasure from funky Princeton-by-the-Sea, and now it’s payback time–and the only way I know how….my book: “Princeton-by-the-Sea, published by Arcadia, will be available in the bookstores for Christmas (and there will be a booksigning at Bay Book on Friday, December 14 at 7 pm) I hope you will enjoy the book.
See Pete Douglas in My 1980 Documentary: The Mystery of Half Moon Bay
Playing Catch-Up With LARRY KAPLAN…Lincoln H.S. Alum
Email Larry Kaplan: [email protected]
You may recall my “Conversations with Larry Kaplan”
We went to Lincoln High School in San Francisco together. He drove there; I walked.
Here’s Larry: 
and here’s me: 
Coincidentally, we both attended San Jose State and even more coincidentally we lived in the same apartment building at 555 South 8th Street. Back then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, lots of students lived off campus, renting rooms in these wonderful old Victorian houses.
Our apartment building was boring architecturally and the cop fraternity was next door so we had to be on our best behavior.
On weekends I drove home to San Francisco to see my folks in my 1966 Chevy Malibu, yellow with a black vinyl top.
Larry rode his ten speed home to see his parents in the City–or packed his wheels into the trunk of my roommate Sue’s car and traveled with her.
Later, when I moved to the Coastside, I encountered Larry waxing his surfboard at El Granada Beach. While there, Larry doodled some sketches in the notebook I was carrying.
At the time he wanted to make surfboards and the doodlings were actually the beginning of a business that would broaden into expert yacht repair and much more.
Here’s a photo of an early Kaplan surfboard–handmade at our 555 So. 8th Street apartment building in San Jose.
Years passed, decades flew by–and I gave birth to my website called halfmoonbaymemories.com. I keep everything, so it was no surprise to find Larry Kaplan’s doodlings among all my stuff. I posted them, and one day, to my great surprise, Larry got in contact with me…which led to my posts called “Conversations with Larry Kaplan….”
I learned that he was the owner of the Thoroughbred called Vegas, a horse that really flies. If you don’t remember, here’s Vegas:
Now it’s the Holidays, time to re-connect with old friends and what better place to meet than here at my website. It’s quiet here and we can talk.
Larry: The sailing shot
is of me at the helm of a 57′ Swan ketch. I was hired to take her from Oahu to San Diego. There were three of us aboard. We had five sails up the entire way and we hauled ass…got to San Diego in 16 days.(that’s fast). Expect the photos in the morning, please. I am SO proud of you and books. Do I get to purchase one?
June: You mean my new “Princeton-by-the-Sea book? You can come to my booksigning at Bay Book in Half Moon Bay on Friday, December 14 at 7 pm. Tell me about WANDA.
Larry: The photo of WANDA depicts her as a yacht; a WHOLE yacht.
The ones you recv’d with the Tug photos
showed WANDA from her stern and I wanted you to see just how majestic she really is. She is due for complete restoration and those logistics are what are currently being bantered about. In the meantime, when I go to Petaloooooooooooma, I play with the Tugboat and I check on the wellbeing of WANDA.
June: How did you and Wanda become acquainted?
Larry: I needed a place to park one of my client’s yachts for a year or so, and she is side tied to my friend’s Tugboat. Her name is WANDA; she is 90′ long and she was built in 1922. My clients are in Canada and I get to play with WANDA at will. I do. WANDA is my haven, I say, HAVEN away from home. There is a funny sign on WANDA’S stern about lemonade.
June: What else?
Larry: A dear friend of mine; we literally grew up together…he went to Lowellllll while you and I went to the right place; anyway, he bought a 65′ Tugboat that is sixty years old. He does not know boats. I do. His Tug is parked on the Petaluma River VERY near downtown Petaluma and the Riverfront re-construction effort that is re-vitalizing the entire downtown of Petalooooma.
(Photo: The WANDA in full)
June: Well, Lar, you look like you’re aging well.
Larry: Getting old as gracefully and as fast as I can….(I DO need to trim my moustache…there. Perfect!)
1960s: Dominic’s (San Benito House): Early Owner History
(Photo: HMB Hotel, Dominics…and most recently the San Benito House [which has been sold in 2007] at the corner of Mill & Main Streets.)
From the Half Moon Bay Review, 1960s
“Domenic’s Place Sale Negotiations Now Under Way”
“Negotiations for the sale of Domenic’s Place in Half Moon Bay are now under way, according to Domenic Dagani who says that Michael deValera Murphy of San Mateo plans to purchase the business.
“The establishment located at the corner of Mill street and Main street, has been operated since June 27, 1935, when Dominic purchased it from Mrs. Abramo Luchessi of Purisima. It was previously known as the H.M.B. Hotel.
“It was indicated that if license transfer and financial arrangements are completed, the new owner will take possession by May 15, it was said.
“Dagani, who was born in Italy and spent part of his life in Switzerland before coming to the U.S. in 1921, came to the Coastside and worked at Dan’s Place in Moss Beach from 1924 to 1934. For a time he worked with the late Charlie Carlini. He says he has made “no plans” as yet for his future activities.”
1960s: 20 Monterey Pines Planted In El Granada
(Photo: El Granada, 1970s)
From the “Half Moon Bay Review,” 1960s
“Twenty two-year old Monterey Pines were planted in open spaces of The Alameda parkway in El Granada last Saturday, as the start of long range program of parkway beautification sponsored by the Granada Garden Group.
“The tree planting is being carried out in cooperation with the County Parks and Recreation Division, according to Sam Leedom of the garden organization.
“The Monterey Pines were obtained through the courtesy of Daniel Willis, chief of the County Park Department, when the Garden Group found the State Division of Forestry did not have the stock available, Leedom said.
“The planting in the Alameda parkway is designed to carry out the original plan of having that thoroughfare lined with Monterey Pines as it now is between Isabella and Portola and from Balboa down to Alhambra Street.
Continue reading “1960s: 20 Monterey Pines Planted In El Granada”
1943: Kingfisher Crash at San Gregorio Beach
To see original story, click here
Story by Ken Freeze–Check-Six.com (with special thanks to John Vonderlin for sending it to me)
Kingfisher Crash off San Francisco
May 9, 1943
By Ken Freeze
Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco during World War II
Flight operations from the air station consisted mainly of anti-submarine patrols and search and rescue missions using a mix of aircraft that included Hall PH-3, Douglas RD-4, Consolidated PBY-5, some Grumman J4F-1s, and six Vought OS2U-2 Kingfishers from the Navy.
(Photo: The Barracks at Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco in 1943)
By 1943, seeing Navy personnel working along side Coasties was a common sight at the air station. So on May 9th 1943, when Coast Guard Radioman Henry Kind climbed aboard Navy OS2U-2 Kingfisher No. 2270 along with Navy pilot LTjg Dale C. Burroughs, it was just another routine anti-submarine patrol along the California coast. However, this patrol was to end very differently.
The Last Flight of Kingfisher #2270
“We left that afternoon on a coastal patrol carrying two 100 pound bombs,” said Kind. Kind had flown a similar patrol just the day before and had flown with LTjg Burroughs a number of times over the previous months.
The patrol that day was uneventful and, after four hours in the air, Burroughs and Kind were just minutes from landing back at Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco when the Kingfisher approached San Gregorio Beach, on the coast about 30 miles south of the air station.
Kind remembers what happened next very well. “LTjg Burroughs called back to me and asked if I had my seat belt fastened,” said Kind. “LT
Burroughs said his wasn’t, but he knew what he was about to do and I didn’t. He then put the plane into a dive then climbed to the left toward the ocean. The plane started to feel like someone was shaking it.”
The next thing Kind knew was he was underwater. “I fought my way to the surface,” said Kind. “My seat had been completely ripped from the plane and there was a hole in the side of the plane. That seat breaking loose the way it did probably saved my life.”
Unbeknownst to Kind, LTjg Burroughs had put the Kingfisher into a whip stall, a maneuver that is difficult to recover from at high altitude even for an experienced pilot, and one that at low altitude is often deadly. In this case, 22-year-old LTjg Burroughs, had paid the ultimate price for his stunt.
“I never saw the pilot after the crash,” Kind said. “I tried diving for him but I was wearing an inflated ‘Mae West’ life vest and both my legs were injured.”
Alive – But Not Safe
While Kind may have survived the crash, he wasn’t safe yet. He was badly injured, floating in the chilly waters of the Northern California Coast and nearly a quarter mile from shore.
Meanwhile, on the beach a group of students from Stanford University had witnessed the accident.
“It was Sunday, and a bunch of us Stanford kids were out at the beach,” said Robert W. Brown. “We saw this plane come down the beach, flying very low. At the north end of the beach there’s this promontory that sticks out. The plane came up to it and climbed up while banking. It then lost air speed and crashed into the water three or four hundred yards off the beach.”
“I had done a lot of ocean swimming off the Atlantic coast so swimming in the ocean didn’t bother me,” said Brown. “But the water was very cold and I didn’t want to swim out by myself.” Brown, who played shortstop for the varsity baseball team, asked another student, Robert McClean, to swim out with him.
Brown and McClean entered the water and made their way through the rough surf. “It took us quite a while to get out through the surf and to the plane,” said Brown. “We could see the one person floating in the water. He wasn’t moving so we knew he needed help. Once we got to him we towed him back in. It took us about 45 minute to an hour. We never did see any sign of the pilot.”
Soon another Navy plane was on the scene and dropped a rubber raft near the remnants of the Kingfisher. Later, additional Coast Guard personnel from San Francisco arrived on scene with a surfboat. Three of these Coasties suffered minor cuts and bruises when their boat overturned in the surf in their first attempt to reach the plane.
Once Kind was on the beach, he was taken by Army ambulance to a nearby Army aid station. From there he was taken to the Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco. “I was in the hospital for a month,” Kind said. “My left thumb was badly fractured. Both legs were badly sprained and I had lots of cuts and bruises all over. I also lost all feeling in my left leg. It was all numb from the knee down. They had me wrapped up like a mummy.”
The next day, most of the wreckage of the Kingfisher had washed up on San Gregorio Beach. Crews tried to salvage as much of the wreckage as possible and also worked to recover the two bombs that the plane had been carrying. The body of LTjg Burroughs washed up on a beach nearby several days later.
Epilogue
After his month in the hospital, Kind spent another month as an out patient. But by July 1943, Kind was back at the Coast Guard Air Station flying again. 
(Photo: Radioman Henry Kind on the left testing an emergency transmitter.)
Click here to view pages from his log book that deal with the crash.
Page 1 Page 2
Kind eventually left the Coast Guard and joined the San Francisco Police Department. He is now retired and living in Utah.
Radioman Henry Kind on the left testing an emergency transmitter.
Coast Guard Silver Lifesaving Medal
As for Brown, he finished up his studies at Stanford and enlisted in the Navy, being called to duty in July 1943. A year had passed and while waiting to go to medical school he was assigned to a local Naval Hospital as a corpsman.
(Image: Coast Guard Silver Lifesaving Medal)
“One day the Captain called me in and presented me with a medal,” he said. “I heard him say ‘lifesaving medal’ so at first I thought is was a Carnegie Lifesaving Medal. It was only later that I found out that it was a Coast Guard Silver Lifesaving Medal.”
“I never saw Bob McClean again after that day,” said Brown. “I’m not sure what happened to him but I guess he also got a medal.”
Brown eventually made it to the Tulane University School of Medicine where he graduated as an M.D. in 1950.
Over the next 50 years, Brown had a full life to say the least. As a pro baseball player, fans packed the stadiums and cheered for him during four World Series championships as he stepped to the plate for the New York Yankees. He also saw the frontlines during the Korean War where he served as a doctor with the U.S. Army.
Then for 25 years, Brown dedicated his life to the practice of cardiology in Fort Worth, Texas before leaving for New York to be president of the American Baseball League.
Today, Brown has returned to Fort Worth where he enjoys retirement with his wife Sara.
The Crash Site Today
San Gregorio Beach is now a State Beach. With a driftwood-strewn estuary, wide sandy beach and grassy bluffs along the coast, it is still a favorite place for many to spend a day. As people walk along the sand there is no evidence of the events on that spring day 60 years ago when, for just a moment, an error in judgment cost the life of one man, and nearly the life of another.
WHY MAVERICKS? NOAA Explains…..Enjoy the Flyover
Click here
[Very special thanks to John Vonderlin for sending this to me. Email John: [email protected]
CALIFORNIA SEA FLOOR SURVEY
SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON BIG WAVES
New Sonar Data Helps Explain Why ‘Mavericks’ Waves
are Among Nation’s Largest
This map (click image for larger view) shows the geographic range of the north-central coast study region for the current phase of the Marine Life Protection Act implementation process. Seafloor mapping data is being collected throughout this entire area to provide habitat distribution information.
This is a regional map (click image for larger view) showing National Marine Sanctuary boundaries, Bay Area faults, and the location of the data collected at Mavericks.
Over the last decade, the Mavericks surf break has captured international attention. An interesting question is, “Why do such big waves break here?”
This is a map of shaded bathymetry with wave lines on it. The blue lines show hypothetical large wave crests propagating in to shore from the west. As the waves move into shallow water, they begin to interact with the seafloor (“shoal”) and their crests slowly bend to try to maintain their roughly parallel orientation to the bottom contours. The more the waves interact with the seafloor, the more they slow down and bunch up. Wave “rays”, or the pathways of wave energy, move perpendicular to the wave crests. In areas where the wave rays, and hence wave energy, diverges, the wave height decreases. Conversely, in areas where the wave rays, and hence wave energy, converges, the wave height increases. Due to the steep topography of the bedrock reef at Mavericks, the wave energy rapidly converges and the wave height rapidly increases, creating a huge wave compared to the adjacent areas.
The dominant wave direction off the central coast of California during most of the year is from the northwest. These waves propagate over the much gentler topography to the northwest of Sail Rock and are generally too small to shoal and break at Mavericks. Sometimes during the winter months, however, strong North Pacific storms generate large, long-period waves from more westerly directions that shoal and break over the bedrock reef just to the east of Sail Rock. The abrupt topography of the bedrock reef causes wave energy to converge over the reef, causing the wave to rapidly slow down, shorten in length and substantially increase in height relative to the areas just to the north and south of the east-west trending reef. This interaction of the geology and oceanography is what makes the wave at Mavericks so spectacular compared to many other locations along central California.
Mavericks flythrough animation (mpg, 10 MB)
This fly-through begins approximately ½ mile offshore from Pillar Point north of Half Moon Bay. The area we are looking at in detail is a shallow nearshore reef in the vicinity of the San Gregorio fault, a major active fault within the San Andreas fault system. Motion on the fault zone has uplifted and deformed the rocks in the area near Mavericks into the S and J shaped folds we see on the seafloor.
The 3-D image is color-coded by depth: the blue and green areas are deeper than the areas in yellow and red. You can see how rugged the sea floor is in this area with lots of ridges, valleys, chasms, and pinnacles.
The new data indicates that Mavericks is above a portion of the rocky reef that is shallower than the surrounding rock. As a wave front approaches the shoreline and progressively enters shallow water, it becomes compressed and grows taller. The ridge promontory also has the effect of focusing wave energy and the wave height rapidly increases, creating a huge wave compared to adjacent areas. About here (the highest red we see), the wave becomes unstable and breaks. In fact, the data collection stopped here because the rough sea conditions made it too dangerous for the scientists to operate their boat!
Although interesting for explaining the mystery of Mavericks, scientists and resource managers will be using this data to identify hazards to navigation, classify different habitat types, locate biological hot spots, and study the San Gregorio fault.