This Week on the Central Coast…
Bach festival home tours, local art in Sand City, a wildflower show, dance week, and sustainable fishing.
Monterey
Carmel Bach Festival Home Tour returns
The “Cottages, Gardens, and Cantatas” home tour returns after taking a few years off due to the pandemic. The tour will feature, for the first time, five cottages all within walking distance in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Each cottage will feature a local musician playing baroque and classical music.
The tour will be on Saturday, May 6, from 11am to 3pm. Tickets can be purchased through the Carmel Bach Festival website or the office in the lower parking lot of the Sunset Center. Advanced tickets are $40 or can be purchased on the day for $45.
The 86th annual Carmel Bach Festival will be on July 15 to July 29 and tickets go on sale May 1.
A Sand City artist is using salvaged redwood to create a temporary performance stage
Local artist Jayson Fann started to create a temporary outdoor art installation on April 17. Once completed, the project will serve as a unique theater for musicians and other artists to perform on. The piece isn’t expected to be completed until Sand City’s West End Celebration (which will be August 26 & 27, artists and vendors are encouraged to apply now) , but Fann plans to hold a few open-hours viewings before then.
Sand City has been known as an artists’ hub since the 60s. The city has supported its art community through its actions, such as the creation of the Sand City Art Park out of a former maintenance yard.
This weekend, guests attended the annual wildflower show in Carmel, put on by the California Native Plant Society. Every year, CNPS volunteers spend hours picking, identifying, and preserving native flowers. Plants are identified with the use of microscopes and fauna books, then put on display for guests to enjoy and learn. “Monterey County has more plants than some states do. It’s a very diverse environment and we want people to know about the variety of flowers here”
The local show is “one of the largest and longest-running wildflower shows in the country, according to CNPS, and features more than 600 sub-species of flora or taxa.“
Santa Cruz
Dance Week has started in Santa Cruz
Dance Week started on Thursday and will continue until Friday, April 28. The first night featured dancers performing a variety of styles, including samba, ballroom, and hula, then concluded with a finale featuring fire dancers, pole dancers, and hula.
You can still sign up for classes through the final day. Passes to sit in on all the upcoming classes are only $20.
The Friendliest Catch sets an example of how sustainable fishing can be done
Matt Rockhold, captain of The Friendliest Catch, is a professional-surfer-turned-commercial-fisherman. It’s no surprise that he has a deep respect for the ocean and wants to do his part to help preserve the life that lives in it. The Friendliest Catch is a role model for how sustainable fishing can be done right. All of their equipment is electric, cutting back on pollution and emissions. The crew uses recycled bait in their crab traps, taking fish scraps from H&H. Any bycatch, such as lingcod and octopus, are released back into the ocean.
Rockhold is currently working with the Monterey Bay Fishery Trust to brainstorm ideas of how to incentivize more fisherman to use sustainable methods. He believes their way of fishing is the future of the business. And for the sake of our ocean sanctuaries, let’s hope he’s right!