Thank you for your excellent contributions so far. I think you have great stuff.
To be honest, your entry #1 is my favorite because I think it has the most potential to be refined into the winning design. It has great contrast and captures a lot of what our community is about.
I'd like you to make some changes to design #1 for your next version. The outer ring of waves makes the design look a little bit like a saw blade so I'd like to simply remove it. I'd like you to work with the two remaining 'arcs' or moon shapes. Please make the orange/yellow crescent a bit more moon-like, perhaps less of a crescent. Please explore how to make the inner crescent into a cresting ocean wave. I think the wave cresting within a moon would be a cool concept. Lastly, I need you to look at the center core of the design because we really are not a community with big buildings as you've pictured. I'm not sure what should go there, but I know it's not buildings. Please follow the links in the brief for video and photos from Half Moon Bay. I think you'll get a lot of great ideas there.
Thank you again. Please let me know if you have any questions.
I'd like you to reference designs #3 and #9, by other designers. They both captured some ideas that you might want to consider, with a crescent moon, ocean, waves, land, hills, and mountains worked into the center area of the design. I think some of these ideas might work well with your design.
I still like your design #1 the best. I recommend that you work with that one, remove the outer ring of waves and refine the central area to reflect water, hills, and mountains in a stylized way. I definitely think this design has the most potential as compared to all the entries so far.
Please let me know if you have any questions. AND Thank You!
I also see a lot of potential in #47, however, we do not have palm trees or a tropical environment here. You effectively captured the ocean and land, if you used similar styling to include green hills and mountains then you'd have a great reflection of Half Moon Bay. I think if you replace the cliff and palm trees with green hills and a mountain symbol, you'd have something really competitive.