Fort Bragg · Thursday, October 8
A record of what this coast is doing, kept by the people who are on it.
Overcast clouds over Fort Bragg, 67 degrees. The tide is 1.5 feet and rising toward 5.5 feet at 10:23 PM. The tidepools are under water for the rest of the afternoon, so this is a day for the bluffs above them. Sunset is at 6:47 PM, about 2 hours of light left.
The coast asks
6 entries
Beach · Mendocino · 4.9
Portuguese Beach is a sandy cove beneath oceanfront bluffs at the southern edge of Mendocino village, in Mendocino Headlands State Park. A footpath from the west end of Main Street leads down wooden steps to driftwood-lined sand framed by cliffs. An offshore rock arch is visible from the beach.
Winery · Philo · 5.0
Brashley Vineyards is a family-owned winery in Anderson Valley, set among redwoods. The ten-acre organically farmed Pinot Noir vineyard produces Pinot Noir, Rosé, and other varietals. The tasting room offers indoor and outdoor seating, welcomes families and pets, and has wine club memberships.
Gallery · Mendocino · 5.0
Lansing Street Gallery in Mendocino is owned by Michael Doten and Alecia Ward. It shows local Mendocino and Fort Bragg artists, plus Northern California and Bay Area talent, with occasional international names. Works range from oil paintings and ceramics to woodworking, stained glass, jewelry, and metal arts, with monthly exhibits and Second Saturday events.
Museum · Fort Bragg · 4.9
The Mendocino Coast Model Railroad & Historical Society sits behind the Skunk Train depot. Its hand-built G-scale layout has over 1,300 feet of track, with trestles, bridges, a mill, logging camps, miniature towns, and coastal schooners. Volunteers built it to show Mendocino County logging railroads from 1925 to 1940.
Shop · Fort Bragg · 4.8
This Fort Bragg shop sells coastal souvenirs: collectible shells, silver jewelry, locally made soaps, sea glass, glass floats, and jams. Its in-house Sandy Bottoms apparel line blends coastal and western motifs. The dog-friendly store is open daily, sometimes after hours, and offers shipping.
Restaurant · Albion · 4.7
Ledford House sits on bluff-top headlands above the Albion coastline, with Pacific views and sunsets. Its two dining rooms have wide windows and a Provençal style. Self-taught cooks use local herbs, farms, and fisheries for a Mediterranean menu with Asian and Latin touches, suited to intimate dinners or gatherings.
Ranked against the tide, the light and the weather at this hour. Each heading is the reason the scorer gave for the places under it. Where it rates two places equally, and at most hours it does, the one with more on the record comes first.
Departments
Answer three questions and the coast puts a day together, ranked against the tide and the light rather than against a star rating.
8 towns
Highway 1 from Gualala up to Westport, town by town, in the order the road gives them to you.
No people yet
The people behind the places, in their own words and with their permission. Nobody appears here who has not agreed to.
Longer pieces about this coast, filed when there is something worth saying.
86 venues and vendors
Weddings, reunions and the milestones people travel here for, with the venues and the vendors who work them.
945 places
Every place on file, with the source of each fact and the date it was last checked. The directory, under its real name.
How this page is made
The conditions come from NOAA for the tide, OpenWeather for the sky and the light, and NDBC buoys for the sea. The order of the places is set by a scorer that reads those numbers, and every line it prints under a name is the reason it moved that place up or down.
What is not here
No invented photographs and no stock ones. Around seven in ten places on file have never been photographed, so where you see a picture above it is a real photograph of that exact place, credited to whoever took it. An entry with nothing on file is set as type instead of being given somebody else's picture.
Corrections
Every fact carries its source and the date it was checked. The Index shows both. If you run something on this coast, tell us who you are and correct your own record.