This stretch of California’s rugged coast between Carmel and San Simeon is bordered on the east by mountains and on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and traversed by the narrow winding two- lane Route 1.

Native Americans called the Farallon Islands the “Islands of the Dead” and mariners referred to them as “the devil’s teeth” for their ragged profile and treacherous shores. But the name that stuck was the Spanish farallón, meaning a rocky promontory jutting from the ocean

The islands are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and are located nearly 30 miles off the coast of San Francisco. The Farallones host globally significant wildlife populations, including hundreds of thousands of seabirds and thousands of seals and sea lions.

Located about 20 miles south of San Francisco, Montara State Marine Reserve is surrounded by Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The north end of Montara SMR is guarded by Point Montara Lighthouse, the only lighthouse in the United States that has guided sailors through rough seas on both coasts. Built in Boston in the late 1800s, the lighthouse spent it’s first 50 years overlooking Cape Cod. Dismantled and thought to be recycled for scrap metal, the structure mysteriously reappeared on Point Montara in 1928, yet no one knows exactly how, or why, it made its cross-country journey

Pillar Point SMCA is located next to one of the most feared surf breaks on the planet the wave at ‘Mavericks’, created by the unique depth and shape of the underwater terrain that concentrates energy onto a shallow rocky reef. This produces waves greater than 50 feet tall and has a reputation for being one of the deadliest waves on Earth; a place where daredevils are willing to risk their bodies for the drop of their lives.