Half Moon Bay Lodging and Parking

My wife and I are planning a stop in our RV6 at Half Moon Bay on the way to Catalina Island from Victoria BC- Week of June 11th . Looking for recommendations on reasonable accommodations neat the airport and what to expect in terms or arrival through the San Fransisco area and parking.

Thanks Jeremy

Half Moon Bay

Hi Jeremy,

Parking at the airport is easy, there is transient parking at the southeast end of the runway, and from there a nice walking path into the village of Princeton-by-the-Sea, which is the fishing harbor area of Half Moon Bay. I don't know if they even charge for transient parking there - I've never stayed over night.

There is one Hotel there, the Oceano Hotel and Spa. It looks pretty up-scale. There is also a bed&breakfast-style inn called The Inn at Mavericks.

There are a handful of restaurants there in Princeton, the two I like best are the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, and Mezza Luna, which is a very nice Italian restarante.

If you would like to take a cab (or perhaps the Hotel has a shuttle?) into the city of Half Moon Bay, there are a few other nice restaurants - my favorite is Pasta Moon.

ATC is easy to work with coming south. If you would like, you can actually stay clear of the SFO class-B airspace and not even talk to anyone - but it is surely advisable to work with NorCal Approach. The flight south passing west of the Golden Gate Bridge, and south just along the coast to HAF is spectacular.

If you are VFR-only, the one complication may be the normal coastal fog. It varies in height and extent from day to day. Often the coast is clear in the middle of the afternoon, other times, the coast is shrouded in heavy stratus fog to the ground. Most typical pattern probably is for the fog cloud base to be around 1000-1500 ft, so you can sneak along the coast under it.
The weather pattern to look for to ensure a clear coastline is a high-pressure ridge extending into southeastern Oregon and Idaho. This produces an off-shore flow that gives us warm temps and pushes the marine fog far out to sea.

If you would like a local synopsis/assessment of the weather and strategic suggestions for getting in under the fog, ping me with a PM a day or so before you depart and I'll take a look.

Hope that helps,

Steve.

KHAF

Webcams near the field and some links at top to lodging etc.

http://www.coastsidelive.com/webcams.html

Thanks for the help. I think I will park at KOAK to keep out of the morning fog and access the BART; then hopefully drop in to KHAF.

KHAF Ceilings

The ceilings have been around 1200' for several days. May clear up this weekend...

You'll pass right by what's left of the Golden West Fly-In at Marysville, near Beale AFB on your way down the valley. If you don't stop there beware of the TFR.

If you come down the coast Shelter Cove is up north and a beautiful stop for lunch or the night. Same marine layer issues but a real sleepy little paradise on the ocean.

Have Fun and welcome to the Left Coast!!

KHAF on June 11,12,13

Just to help your planning, the long-range forecast is showing some very mild ridging on Sunday, 6/12 and extending to at least Monday, 6/13. Its not a real strong ridge, but probably enough to keep KHAF clear, or at least higher cloud base.
We are in a transition now, still a pretty strong marine push, and convergence-driven cumulus on the Diablo range. In the next two days, it looks like that on-shore push should diminish slowly and temps are forecast to rise nicely. (FINALLY) Friday will probably be the clearest. Then, I think Saturday may see some return of the marine air, but if the ridge forms as the model shows, Sunday and Monday should be nice again.

If nothing else, you should pick up a nice tailwind about the time you cross the California border.

I'll check back on Thursday and see how well my amateur forecasting is.