San Vicente Creek (San Mateo County)

Moss Beach is a coastal census-designated place in San Mateo County, California, with a year 2020 census population of 3,214. Located in Moss Beach are the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, a marine sanctuary; the Half Moon Bay Airport, the historic Moss Beach Distillery; and the Seal Cove Inn, a destination lodging property. Moss Beach is a cool coastal microclimate that gives one a sense of separation from the nearby metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area and assures that summer temperatures are generally mild.

Moss Beach Distillery is a restaurant in Moss Beach, California, located on a cliff which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It is officially designated as a California Point of Historical Interest. Originally established in 1927 as a speakeasy, it converted into a successful restaurant after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

The Point Montara Light is a lighthouse in Montara, California, United States, on the southern approach to the San Francisco Bay, California approximately 25 miles south of San Francisco.

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is a marine reserve in California on the Pacific Ocean, located just north of Pillar Point Harbor and Mavericks in the San Mateo County community of Moss Beach. Moss Beach is located approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco and 50 miles (80 km) north of Santa Cruz. The reserve is a 32-acre (0.13 km2) holding which extends from Montara light station at the north to Pillar Point on the south. The reserve consists of a three-mile stretch of beach, tidepool habitat, marsh, erosive bluffs, clifftop trail and cypress and eucalyptus forests. The property is owned by the State of California and managed by San Mateo County as a county park and nature preserve. The reserve is administratively assigned to be part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Adjacent to and possibly within the reserve is an endangered species of butterfly, the San Bruno elfin butterfly. Montara State Marine Reserve & Pillar Point State Marine Conservation Area extend offshore from Montara, just north of Pillar Point. Like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve lies within Montara State Marine Reserve.

Montara () is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 2,833 at the 2020 census. Nearby communities include Moss Beach and Princeton-by-the-Sea.

Eddie Andreini Sr. Airfield, officially Half Moon Bay Airport (IATA: HAF, ICAO: KHAF, FAA LID: HAF), is a public airport in San Mateo County, six miles (9.7 km) northwest of Half Moon Bay, California, United States. The airport is on the Pacific Coast, south of San Francisco.

Montara State Marine Reserve (SMR) and Pillar Point State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) are two adjoining marine protected areas that extend offshore from Montara to Pillar Point in San Mateo County on California’s north central coast. The combined area of these marine protected areas is 18.42 square miles (47.7 km2), with 11.76 square miles (30.5 km2) in the SMR and 6.66 in the SMCA. Montara SMR prohibits the take of all living marine resources. Pillar Point SMCA prohibits the take of all living marine resources, except the recreational and commercial take of pelagic finfish by trolling or seine, the commercial or recreational take of Dungeness crab by trap and the commercial or recreational take or market squid by hand-held dip net or round haul net.

Pillar Point Bluff is a 220-acre park in San Mateo County, California. It is part of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, owned by the U.S. state of California, and managed by San Mateo County as a county park and nature preserve. The park is located between Princeton-by-the-Sea and Moss Beach, just north of the Pillar Point peninsula, Pillar Point Harbor, and Half Moon Bay. The area was inhabited by coastal indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and in recent centuries, was used for livestock grazing by Spanish Missions and Mexican ranchos. Pillar Point Bluff was once part of the Rancho Corral de Tierra Mexican land grant before California became a state. Peninsula Open Space Trust first purchased the land in large parcels from 2004 to 2008 to protect it from development, selling it to the county for use as a park in 2011. Additional parcels were added in 2015. The land is now part of the 1,200-mile (1,900 km) California Coastal Trail, a network of public trails along the entire coast of California. The park offers trails for hiking, jogging, horseback riding, cycling and on-leash dog walking. The trails wind through a coastal scrub and coastal terrace prairie habitat, with scenic views of wetlands, farmlands, the Montara Mountain, Half Moon Bay, the Pacific Ocean, Mavericks surf break, and native wildlife, including seasonal views of wildflowers and gray and humpback whales. The area is also home to the threatened California red-legged frog and the endangered San Francisco garter snake. The Jean Lauer Trail, a dirt-packed hiking trail, is ADA accessible.

Montara State Beach is a beach located in the coastal region of the U.S. state of California, eight miles north of Half Moon Bay on State Route 1. It is operated by the California State Department of Parks and Recreation under the San Mateo Coast Sector Office. It is one of the cleanest beaches in the state and is known for surfing and fishing. Montara State Marine Reserve & Pillar Point State Marine Conservation Area extends offshore from Montara State Beach.

Martini Creek is a coastal stream whose watershed lies entirely within San Mateo County, California, United States on the western exposures of the Montara mountain block, discharging to the Pacific Ocean. It flows about 2 miles (3 km) from its source on Montara Mountain to its mouth in Montara State Beach. This stream has a drainage basin composed of open space and agricultural lands. Some of the basin has moderate to steep slopes and much of the basin habitat is northern coastal scrub, and in places almost of a pygmy forest nature. There are numerous species of flora and fauna which are found in this watershed, including the rare plant Hickman's potentilla. Yellow Bush Lupine is also seen here in a low growing form The creek name became widely publicized when a highway alternative for the Devil's Slide bypass became dubbed the "Martini Creek Alignment". The highway proposal caused considerable study during the 1980s and 1990s of biology, geology, air quality and acoustics conditions within this watershed.

Pillar Point Air Force Station, formerly Pillar Point Military Reservation, is a United States Armed Forces facility on 48 acres overlooking Pillar Point Harbor, California. Pillar Point is 15 miles south of the City of San Francisco in San Mateo County. The facility was built and founded on October 10, 1940, as part of the World War II harbor defenses of San Francisco, as there was concern that Japan might attack San Francisco. Large artillery, .50-caliber machine guns for anti-aircraft defense, searchlights, barracks, concrete bunkers, cyclone fences, and an electric system were installed for defensive measures. In June 1944, a short-range UHF Surface Craft Detection Radar System, model SCR-296, built by Western Electric Company was installed. The SCR-296 could detect and track seagoing surface craft.After the war, on January 17, 1946, the radar system was removed. In 1949 the Military Reservation was closed. The US Navy opened the base on September 4, 1959, as a missile tracking station in support of Naval Air Station Point Mugu's Regulus missile program and later Minuteman missiles. In the 1960s the base was transferred to the US Air Force, who took over the missile tracking station. From 1967 to 1972, the station tracked Minuteman II missiles. The current tracking units are AN/FPQ-6 and AN/MPS-36 radars systems, which are C-band radar from the Western Range (USSF) of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Pillar Point is presently used by the United States Space Force for tracking polar-orbiting space satellite and operational intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from Vandenberg, the United States Navy, and the United States Air Force Special Operations Command. Breakwaters were installed in 1961 and a second in 1982 to protect the area from erosion, with mixed results. The peninsula is 0.3 miles (483 m) wide and 0.25 miles (402 m) long, with an elevation from 80 to 180 ft (24 to 55 m). It is connected to the coast by a narrow isthmus on the northeastern side, with Pillar Point Bluff, a county park, almost perpendicular to it. In the 19th century, the land where Pillar Point Air Force Station now resides was part of Rancho Corral de Tierra. It was given to Francisco Guerrero y Palomares by Mexico before California became a US state in 1850. The area was used for farming and grassland pasture until World War II. Just north of the base was Half Moon Bay Flight Strip, an auxiliary airfield for Salinas Army Air Base training used during the war. The Half Moon Bay Flight Strip is now Eddie Andreini Sr. Airfield. There is a prehistoric artifact site, CA-SMA-151, at the station, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mavericks is a surfing location in northern California outside Pillar Point Harbor, just north of the town of Half Moon Bay at the village of Princeton-by-the-Sea. After a strong winter storm in the northern Pacific Ocean, waves can routinely crest at over 25 ft (8 m) and top out at over 60 ft (18 m). Routinely, waves that break can be recorded on seismometers. The break is caused by an unusually shaped underwater rock formation. Mavericks is a winter destination for some of the world's best big wave surfers. From 1999 to 2016, an invitation-only contest called the Titans of Mavericks was held there during most winter surfing seasons, whenever the winter wave conditions there were deemed to be suitable to meet the needs of the contest.