The Montara Beach Coalition has created a beautiful new website dedicated to Montara Beach and the surrounding recreational areas (including McNee Ranch, Gray Whale Cove, and Montara Lighthouse). It’s designed to be a place where people can go for information, pictures, as well as to discuss the area and organize to help the beach.

Illustration: The home page of the Montara Beach Coalition is clearly a labor of love and the work of someone who knows how to design a Web site.

The Coast Guard called off the search for the missing boat Tuesday night and the two men aboard have been declared missing, according to the San Mateo Times. The men have been identified as Dave Pennisi, a commercial fisherman out of Monterey, and Mike Odom, who lived and worked on the boat.

On the other side of the hill, you can pretty much get whatever cell phone service offers you the best deal or the coolest phone.

Here in paradise, it’s little more complicated. Cell phone coverage is really bad in unpredictable ways.  Please share your experiences with cell phone service on the coast and make your recommendations.

Illustration: Sprint’s tower map for the midpeninsula shows just a handful of towers west of Skyline.

A fishing boat, on a charter trip, has been missing off Half Moon Bay since a distress signal was received at 4:22 am on Monday.  The boat, according to the Mercury News, is based at Moss Landing, but docked at Pillar Point Harbor for four years before moving last year. The Daily Review reports that the Coast Guard is using two helicopters, a C-130 plane and an 87-foot patrol boat in the search.

The identity of the vessel and its passengers is being withheld pending notification of the families. 

Coastsider’s navigation bar now features a list of weblogs by coastside residents. The only requirement for inclusion is that the blog should be updated from time to time and that it have some local connection. Some of these sites are not all that local in content, but have enough about their authors’ personal lives that they have a coastside flavor.

I’m hoping that our readers know of more or that I’ll inspire some coastsiders to start their own blogs. 

The Surfrider Foundation has turned an old garage into a water-quality testing lab, according to the San Mateo County Times. The lab, which opens Saturday, is located in a garage on the at the end of Stanford Avenue in Princeton [Map], is owned by Sewer Authority Midcoast and leased to Surfrider at no cost.

Surfrider’s 14-member Blue Water Task force has been collecting water samples from 32 sites and taking them to the County’s Department of Health for analysis. The information is used to close beaches and warn the public. Beach and water closures are posted on the County’s web site. The new lab should help the task force get that information to the public sooner.

The Mercury News profiles Mark Sponsler, surfer and self-taught meteorologist whose Web site Stormsurf is considered the No. 1 source of big-wave forecasts on the Pacific Coast. Sponsler consults on the scheduling of Men Who Ride Mountains at Mavericks.  Sponsler makes the point that remote sensing and forecasting make it possible to have a job, live a little further from the ocean, and surf.

A pedestrian was struck and killed near the Half Moon Bay Airport Saturday, around 9:54 p.m., at Airport Road and Los Banos Avenue [Map], by a vehicle driven by Tammy Houston of Half Moon Bay. Houston, who left the scene to call for help, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Question for our readers: I thought pretty hard before carrying this story. It’s newsworthy, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to record every traffic death or every body washed up on coastside shores. I’d be interested in whether you want to see this coverage on Coastsider. Let me know what you think.

Citizens for Responsible Open Space produced 5,344 signed petition cards to put the expansion of the MROSD (Midpeninsula Open Space District) up to a vote. The petitions were delivered to the LAFCo meeting today at the Ted Adcock Center. While it’s unclear whether they will have the roughly 4000 signatures they need to put MROSD’s expansion on the ballot, after duplicates, invalid signatures, and requested removals have been eliminated and this weekend’s signatures have been added, they certainly appear to be in the ballpark.

If there is an election, we’ll be covering it in depth, from both sides, on Coastsider. But this is a good occasion for me to say a few things that have been on my mind. I’ve been silent on the petition so far, unless you count the “Decline to Sign” sign in my front yard.

Illustration: MROSD’s boundaries, which currently barely cross Skyline, would be extended to the coast under the proposed annexation.

Coastsider now lists community events in the right-hand column of every page, just below the ads. My goal was to make the information prominent on the site and make better use of the right column.  Coastsider should have enough space to feature one week’s worth of general community events. This is an experiment, both in form and content, and your feedback is welcome.