
Stuart McDowell tells the story of the SS Montebello, the oil tanker torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off this coastline in December 1941, days after Pearl Harbor, with the whole crew surviving to reach shore. Longtime locals grew up on pieces of this history, visitors rarely hear that the war touched this coast at all, and hearing it told a few hundred yards from the water is the right way to get it. It opens three days of festival built by the Friends of Cayucos, a Nearby Happenings pick just up Highway 1 from Morro Bay.
Where: Cayucos Landing, Cayucos
When: Thursday, September 17, 2026, 7:00 PM
Who: Cayucos Historical Society, part of the Friends of Cayucos Endless Summer Festival
One good story deserves a full weekend behind it; the rest of the festival and everything else along this stretch of coast is on the Morro Bay events calendar.