Don Allan of the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust left the following comment, but it needs its own post. Please read and help if you can. Also covered on KHUM's Coastal Currents: listen here.
I would like to leave a post - but it's not related to Ocean Night - not seeing a way to send an email or contact you otherwise, I am replying here. My comment/ post is in regard to Houda Point (aka Camel Rock), one of the most popluar surfing locations on the North Coast (and featured in two of the photos on the Ocean Night page). Houda Point is owned by the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust (TCLT, formerly the Humboldt North Coast Land Trust). Last December we started performing maintenance at Houda Point, thanks to a $2,000 donation from Humboldt Surfrider and an inkind donation of over $10,000 worth of labor from the California Conservation Corps. TCLT current and former board members and friends have volunteerd an additional 100 hours to re-build the main trail (where County road runoff blew out the top of the trail), re-build the cable steps to the south beach, and dismantle the rock wall at the overlook. The rock wall repair was needed because the slope below had moved,
causing a big crack in the patio and rock wall which sits directly over the trail. We stockpiled the rock, intending to re-build the wall about 5 feet back from the edge of the bluff, where the ground is more stable. We decided to re-build it in summer when we had a good window of dry weather to let the mortar dry. We started making plans to re-build the wall in early August but unfortunately someone, within the last month, removed our stock-piled rock. It would have taken considerable effort to haul the rock (about a ton and a half's worth) up to Scenic Drive and load it into a truck - and several hours. If anyone saw somone removing the rock, please contact me. Perhaps someone thought it was surplus rock, or perhaps someone had a landscaping project and just wanted some rock. You can buy rock for about $20 per ton so the monetary loss wasn't great, but it's a major hassle to replace. We're an all-volunteer board and just taking care of basic maintenance is challenging enough.
When someone takes our rock, it's a major bummer, and a lot of extra work.To make matters worse, someone also vandalized the interpetive sign next to the overlook. The high-pressure laminate sign, which costs about $400 to fabricate and several times that to design and install, was pried out of the faux-bedrock pedestal. This is just malicious vandalism. I know that nobody associated with Surf Rider would do this, but if anyone saw anyhting, please let us know.
Don Allan,
Vice-President, TCLT
allan707@suddenlink.net