The tiny west county town of Occidental is an enclave of artists, locavores and ranching families with deep Sonoma County roots. Tucked amid the redwood-covered hills between Sebastopol and the coast, it’s a perfect getaway, far from the madding crowd. Click through the above gallery for a few of our favorite things to eat, drink and do in Occidental. Plus, a couple of top accommodations, if you’d like to spend the night.
On a hillside overlooking a farm deep in West Sonoma’s forested Green Valley, an owl hovers, wings outstretched. She is a formidable bird, her wingspan extending some 150 feet, appearing from the fields below like a shadow on the earth.
She won’t be staying long. As the grass grows, spinning from spring green to summer gold, she will, blade by blade, recede into the landscape. By late summer, she will be gone, with no visible trace except perhaps a bit of oyster shell in the soil or smattering of ochre pigment clinging to a blade of grass.
This is exactly as artist Kelsi Anderson of Wild Earth Art intended. Using natural pigments and a spray gun with a 100-foot cord as a brush—her “magic wand” as she playfully calls it—she spends several weeks painting a piece into the natural landscape that, by design, will last only a few days or weeks. Her extraordinarily detailed sand drawings, raked onto a beach, vanish even more quickly, overtaken by wind and tide.
Anderson may feel slightly wistful, but she won’t mourn, for her art is not meant to last and is as much about its making—the process, “the dance with nature,” as she calls it. “Part of the awareness of the piece is that everything is always changing. It has both the elements of surprise and spontaneity,” she says of her singular medium and method of creating ephemeral art in the natural landscape. “When is a painting going to appear and when is it going away? That makes you feel and be really present when you realize, ‘This won’t last.’”
Anderson, a Petaluma native, studied traditional fine art and environmental studies at New York University, where she was mentored by a like-minded environmental artist who stalked nature in one of the most built environments in the world. “We were doing a lot of work directly in the city” she says, “finding all the hidden streams in Manhattan and the different urban gardens. It was amazing. But now I’m in the complete opposite space.”
She has an indoor studio at her home in Forestville. But these days, she revels in her outdoor studio at Green Valley Farm + Mill, a 19th-century homestead where farmers, artists, gardeners, herb growers, and other makers share a sylvan space.
In a green jumpsuit spackled with pigment and boots blackened with iron oxide powder, the 35-year-old artist explores the land for possibilities. In her three years experimenting with equipment and developing a technique for a process few other artists have tried—she found only one artist in France doing the same thing but senses it’s “in the ether now”—she has painted birds on a hill, a snake in a meadow, a group of owls in flight.
Before embarking on a piece, she sits in her chosen spot, quietly meditating and tuning in to the birds and animals, wildflowers and trees, waiting for an image to appear to her. The process, she says is spiritual as well as creative. “I do a lot of imagery with birds. There are a lot of barn owls and great horned owls in this valley and in these barns and I wanted to pay homage to the species that live here.”
Once she has her theme she will take photos of the site and sketch out an image in a notebook. She had to learn how to work on a whole different scale proportionally, as well as to decide what vantage point she wants the image to be seen from. “I want this to look good and realistic from where we’re standing, so people passing by can appreciate it,” she says.
As she works, she is also stewarding the land. The pigments that she uses—iron oxide, clay, calcium carbonate—nourish the soil. She is careful not to disturb native grasses and wildflowers, even if it leaves a splotch in the finished piece. “So even in the act of preparing the canvas there is ecological remediation work that is going on. And that too is my background and my passion and my love,” says the artist, who also has a business designing and installing eco-friendly landscapes that welcome wildlife.
Two recent earth art works Anderson created at rural beaches along the North Coast. The designs are raked into the sand with hand tools and disappear with the tides.
Earlier in her career, Anderson made naturally pigmented earthen walls for building interiors. She has also worked with artist Andres Amador to create designs on beaches along the Sonoma and Mendocino coast. “That work is not only site-specific, but you have to work with the tides. There are just those windows when there are super-low tides. It’s fun and another way to get in synch with nature but also limiting,” she says.
Whether working with sand or soil, the satisfaction for Anderson is in the creation. She likens landscape art to urban graffiti and street art, work she finds “stunning” but “extremely toxic.” She would rather play gently with nature and embrace the impermanence. She says her work illuminates the natural spirit of the land, drawing people to places of sanctuary.
In the future, she hopes to partner with land conservation groups on installations, like the wide-scale salmon painting she created last year to celebrate a local stream restoration project. “I deeply believe in public art that is accessible to all,” she says, “creating work that makes people want to engage with the environment.”
Kelsi Anderson of Wild Earth Art creates large-scale projects on properties throughout Sonoma County. In June, she debuted a piece at Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa. And on July 16, she will welcome visitors to Green Valley Farm + Mill in Sebastopol to view her newest work. 707-2 17-5634, wildearthart.co
Healdsburg artist and chef Naomi McLeod dreams up outdoor celebrations with graceful table settings and fine food and wine — joyous times where memories are made and new friendships cemented.
Her business, Field Day CA, coordinates themed pop-up dinners showcasing local chefs, winemakers, and creatives — all staged in bucolic Sonoma County farms and fields.
Outdoor farm dinners are not a new thing in Sonoma County, where our abundant agricultural heritage and deep bench of chef talent lend weight to such experiences. But McLeod has taken the notion to another level with a focus not just on food but on celebrating her wider creative community. She often incorporates live local music and art displays into her programming.
Increasingly, she’s also offering pre-dinner art-making workshops where guests can channel their inner muses.
McLeod has been drawn to beauty all her life. She grew up in the famously artistic center of Santa Fe, New Mexico, then at 21, moved to California. She’s lived in Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and now Healdsburg, where she moved to take a job as event coordinator at SHED, the former culinary marketplace. “Through all the different disciplines I’ve worked and played in, my interests were always around art, food, and wine,” she explains.
The Field Day CA idea began percolating in 2014, when a friend purchased a vintage Blue Bird International school bus and retrofitted it into a fully functioning catering kitchen. McLeod stepped in part time to help her friend with some small events, while raising a newborn son. The two friends’ fledgling work saluted the phenomenon of Outstanding in the Field, a farm-focused, rock ‘n’ rollstyle series of al fresco dinners, where McLeod had briefly worked.
During the pandemic, McLeod bought the kitchen bus from her friend, named it Hugo, and started putting together a new round of ideas for growing the business.
But then McLeod lost her home in the Walbridge Fire. “So, home schooling with a kid and no house—the bus just sat idly by.” Finally, in 2021, she was more settled and ready to relaunch. “That first dinner was at a woman’s house with spectacular Zinfandel vines, apple orchards and redwoods,” she says—and it was gorgeous.
McLeod is currently reveling in the bounty of local summer produce—peaches, zucchini, peppers, and herbs especially—and focusing on expanding her lineup of public events and dinners. “I feel like those events are the most authentically me,” she says. “I love collaborating with all the art and food talent in Sonoma County and bringing people together. Sharing our Dry Creek farms like Preston — they’re just so pretty and wild, and they’re all great people.”
Field Day CA, 415-710-5145, fielddayca.com
Labneh is a thickened yogurt common in Middle Eastern cuisines. Chef Naomi McLeod of farm-to-table catering business Field Day CA makes it at home by allowing full-fat yogurt to drain until thickened. She says tender carrots such as Nantes work beautifully for this dish.
Serves four as a side dish
• 2 bunches carrots
• 3-4 tbsp. plus an additional 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 2 tsp. cumin
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 8 ounces full-fat yogurt, such as Straus
• 1/2 shallot, chopped
• 1/4 tsp. Aleppo pepper
• 1/4 tsp. turmeric
• 1/2 cup mixed chopped herbs, such as chives, tarragon, cilantro, basil, and dill
• Half a lemon
• Pinch of flaked sea salt (such as Maldon)
• Crusty bread, for serving First, strain the yogurt. Add a pinch of salt to the yogurt, stir gently, and place in a square of muslin over a bowl. Allow to strain for 1-2 hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Wash and scrub carrots, but do not peel. Place on a baking tray and toss with 3-4 tbsp. olive oil, honey, cumin, salt, and pepper.
Roast carrots at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to roast until carrots are softened but still a tiny bit firm, about 20 additional minutes, depending on the size of your carrots. Remove carrots from roasting pan and set aside to cool.
Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a pan on a medium-hot stove. Add shallots, turmeric, Aleppo pepper, salt, and pepper to the oil and fry until shallots are lightly browned. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
In a small bowl, combine the shallot oil, strained yogurt, and chopped herbs. Stir gently to combine.
To serve, spread the yogurt mixture across the bottom of a medium-size serving platter. Top with roasted carrots. Garnish with a squeeze of lemon juice, flaked sea salt, and an additional pinch of Aleppo pepper, if desired. Serve with crusty bread.
Serves two as a main dish, four as a hearty side
Chef Naomi McLeod of Healdsburg’s Field Day CA says this summertime salad features a terrific combination of crunch from the almonds and salty savoriness from the Parmesan cheese.
• 1/2 cup Marcona almonds
• 1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup sherry vinegar
• Juice of 1 large lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 medium zucchini
• 2 large shallots, chopped
• 1 pound peeled uncooked shrimp
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1 bunch fresh mint
• 3 ounces Parmesan cheese, shaved into wide strips First, toast the almonds. Heat a small pan over high heat. Add the almonds to the pan and stir until aromatic and lightly browned, about 3 minutes.
Remove from pan and allow to cool, then chop roughly and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste to make a simple dressing. Using a mandoline, shave the zucchini into long, thin strips. Add the zucchini strips to the bowl with the dressing and toss well to coat.
Heat a pan with 2 tbsp. olive oil and 2 tbsp. butter over medium to mediumhigh heat. Add the sliced shallots and let soften for 2 minutes. Add the shrimp and white wine and cook an additional 2-3 minutes until the sauce has been reduced slightly. The shrimp should be firm but not overcooked.
Remove from heat and set aside. To assemble the salad, toss the zucchini and shrimp together with chopped mint, almonds, and Parmesan (reserving a small amount of mint, almonds, and Parmesan for the final garnish).
Divide the tossed salad among individual plates. Top with the rest of the Parmesan cheese, mint, and almonds, and serve right away.
“I don’t like super-sweet desserts,” says Field Day CA chef Naomi McLeod, who explains that the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout brings a complex, earthy, baking spice element to this easy summer pound cake recipe. McLeod lives just a half-mile from the famed orchards at Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Peach and loves to incorporate their beautifully tart-ripe orange peaches in this dish.
Serves 10
For the glazed peaches and sauce:
• 3 ripe peaches, halved
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 tbsp.) butter
• 1 tbsp. ras el hanout
For the cake:
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp. ras el hanout
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 7 tbsp. butter, melted
• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pistachios or walnuts, chopped (optional)
• Freshly whipped cream, for serving Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare the peach topping. Grill peach halves over medium flame until soft and lightly marked by the grill. Slice into wedges.
Melt butter on a stove over medium-low heat, then add honey and stir well to combine. Add 1 tbsp. ras el hanout and stir to combine. Remove from heat, add sliced peaches, and toss gently.
Set aside.
To prepare the cake, combine sugar and 1 tbsp. ras el hanout in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs and milk, and mix with an electric hand mixer until combined. Add in the melted butter, olive oil, and nuts, if using, and mix. Finally, add the flour and baking powder and mix gently until all ingredients are incorporated into the batter.
Butter a standard-size loaf pan and dust the sides and bottom with flour. Pour the batter into the pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Before removing from the oven, check for doneness with a clean toothpick or knife. Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes.
To serve, slice the pound cake and place slices on individual serving plates. Drizzle slices with the peach sauce, and top with grilled peaches and whipped cream.
Among the two dozen or so surfers dotting the lineup at Salmon Creek Beach on a sunny Sunday morning in early summer, one waterman stood out, both for the number of waves he was catching, and the steez—style and ease—with which he rode them.
William Beal, better known up and down the North Coast as Billy Blaze, spent a decade on the North Shore of Oahu learning to ride big waves. That pedigree was evident during this session at “Salmon,” two miles north of Bodega Bay. The tight-end-sized 54-year-old—he stands at 6-foot-4, 220 pounds—was fluid, unhurried, supremely confident as he carved the faces of wave after head-high wave.
Also eye-catching was his boxy-looking board, a 5-foot-9-inch crimson creation called the “Flathead,” a design Beal conceived and constructed in the studio behind his home in the hills west of Sebastopol. In addition to being a respected elder in the hardy tribe of surfers braving the chill waters and great white sharks along this rugged coast, Beal has made many of the boards they ride.
He is a grinning, shredding, deeply passionate anomaly in the modern surf world.
At a time when more and more surfboards are being mass produced, with help from robotized, high-precision machines, Beal is among a dwindling breed of shapers plying his craft entirely by hand.
Surfboards by Blaze (also, incidentally, the name of his business) can be found lined up in a rack at the Bodega Bay Surf Shack, beckoning customers into the shop like sirens. Or you can just call him—his number is on his Facebook page, which links to his even groovier Instagram account—for a bespoke, made-to-order “stick”.
Making those boards earns extra income for Beal, a carpenter by trade who works five days a week on customized van conversions. It also feeds him on a deeper level. “I always wanted to be an artist—always wished I could draw and paint, but I’m not really good at it,” he said. (He actually is pretty good at it, says his longtime surfing buddy, Christian Nolan.) “But one day, as I was shaping, I realized, I’m creating art. I mean, if someone thinks it’s beautiful, that’s art, right?”
He is, in that case, an accidental artist, who first tried his hand at surfboard shaping nearly two decades ago.
Around 2005, Beal recalls, he approached the world-class shaper Ed Barbera, who was then based in Santa Cruz. Beal asked Barbera if he could drive down to watch him work. Barbera said yes, and was an important source of instruction for Beal, especially early in his journey as a shaper. Over time, mentee evolved into competitor.
Barbera, a white-haired, Gandalf- like sage of a shaper, eventually migrated north to Sonoma County, and now practices his wizardry— barefoot, according to local lore—in a red barn behind Northern Light Surf Shop.
Ed Barbera’s boards “are more refined than Bill’s,” says Mike Doherty, one of Beal’s oldest friends, who rides boards shaped by both men. “But Billy’s a super student. He puts so much passion into his art and is always trying to come up with new things. A lot of shapers burn out, but he’s definitely not burning out. He’s climbing the ladder, and it’s been a cool thing to witness.”
There was no thought of making money when Beal took up this avocation. At the time, he merely hoped to learn the skills that would allow him to save a few bucks by making his own boards.
At a time when many other makers focus on just one aspect of the process— the shaping, the fiberglass, the paint job—Beale is proudly a one-man show.
All boards begin with a “blank,” the polyurethane foam core that gives the stick its buoyancy. After laying a template over a blank, then tracing the outline of the board, Beal began shaping it.
“A lot of [shapers] will cut their outline out with a handsaw, but I don’t dig that,” he said, “cause I’ve screwed it up that way.” As a carpenter, he’s more comfortable using a Skilsaw, whose strident whine is amplifi ed in the close confines of his studio, roughly 20 paces from his house.
To get the rest of the “meat off the blank,” Beale makes passes up and down with an electric hand planer, going deeper or shallower as needed. For the finer work, creating the contours that will give the board its speed and grip and lift, he swaps out the planer for … an oversized cheese grater. That’s what it looked like, anyway.
The surform, as it’s known, harvests curlicues of foam that join the accumulation of detritus on the floor, on Beal’s clothes, and atop the hair on his forearms.
As the final shape emerges, he picks up a sanding block. “This’ll take off the hard edges,” he says, “and give us a nice round rail.” He then routs out narrow rectangles on the bottom of the board to secure the fins, which give the board stability, allowing it to cut through the water.
That done, the shaper drapes fiberglass cloth over the board. That miracle fabric “is like rebar in concrete,” says Beal. It gives the board “a structure, so it won’t crack.”
He dons a respirator for the next step, pouring resin over the cloth, squeegeeing it around, waiting for it to cure, then flipping the board and repeating the process.
The respirator stayed on for the “sand coat” —a different species of resin containing a wax that makes that coating “more sandable,” said Beal. That coating provides a kind of buffer, “a layer you can sand without digging into the cloth.”
Once that coat dries, he is on the homestretch, sanding the board until it’s right, after which he might add some pinstripes, before applying—don’t take that respirator off just yet!—a final sand coat.
“Billy is the real deal when it comes to boards,” says Bob Miller, who, for the last 28 years has owned the Bodega Bay Surf Shack. “They all sell really well.”
Just as Hawaiians are known to underestimate wave height at their local break, Beal tends to undersell his shaping skills. “He’s better than he gives himself credit for,” says Christian Nolan, who is especially attached to Beal’s shorter, wider, flatter boards because they’re “more maneuverable” than the longer, high-performance shapes he and Beal favored 20 years ago. “You can ride bigger, sloppier surf” on one of Beal’s Flatheads, says Nolan, “and have more fun.”
Another fan of the Flathead is Doherty at Northern Light, who raves about the speed the board is able to hold during pivoting and turning. “It’s very glidey—superfast. It almost feels like a piece of ice, but it has grip to it.”
“I wish I’d gotten one 30 years ago.” But Beal only started making the Flathead in 2010.
The board’s curious, rectangular lines turn heads on the beach and in the lineup.
“I get it all the time, people asking me, ‘What’s with that board?’” says Beal, who is happy to get technical, explaining to strangers that the Flathead’s wide nose and tail “create a straighter rail line,” resulting in “less drag and more speed.”
From there, he is apt to embark on a soliloquy detailing how he and his board-making ilk stand on the shoulders of the pioneering shaper Bob Simmons, who was himself indebted to MIT-educated boat designer Lindsay Lord, author of the 1946 book “Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls.”
The son of a U.S. marine, William Beal grew up on a series of military bases. He spent his grade school years on Oahu, where he was immersed in surf culture. His older sister dated surfers, who encouraged the lad to take up their sport.
After attending high school in Okinawa, then Virginia, Beal moved to Santa Rosa in the mid-1980s “to see my grandpa.” He found work at Surf Plus, a shop that had just opened at the Coddingtown Mall.
“He comes rolling up on a cruiser bike, just a cool dude, and the nicest guy,” recalls Bob Miller, who also worked at the shop back then. “We just kinda hit it off from there.”
Beal wasn’t there long before a friend in Hawaii persuaded him to come back to the islands, promising a job in construction. He learned a trade, joined the carpenters union, became a handyman. For Beal that work served a higher purpose: he was determined to overcome his fears and ride the storied, massive waves on Oahu’s North Shore.
At the time he moved back to Hawaii, Beal remembers, “I was still kind of timid and didn’t have any direction.”
His quest to ride those waves gave him direction. “The ability to tackle something that’s terrifying, to do it and make it back to the beach alive—that gave me this sense of, ‘I can be a strong person. I can overcome things.’ It gave me a confidence I didn’t have.” Facing that monster and overcoming it, Beal believes, “gives you a certain way you can carry yourself afterwards.”
Back in Sonoma County after a decade on the North Shore, he found himself on another quest. What started as a hobby has turned into something more all-consuming—“the challenge to make a perfect surfboard.”
There came a point in that journey when he might see a board in a magazine or on Instagram, then get to work in his studio. “A week later I’m holding it in my hands,” he says. “That transition from the thought to the real thing—it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s my creation.’ You have an idea, you do the work, and it manifests into a real object. It’s kind of a magical thing.”
Bill ‘Blaze’ Beal: Carpenter and big-wave surfer whose desire to save a few bucks evolved into a quest to shape the perfect stick. Clients rave about his super-fast yet maneuverable Flathead model. On Instagram @surfboardsbyblaze.
Ed Barbera: World-class shaper who made his bones in SoCal, Hawaii, and Santa Cruz before adopting Sonoma County. The sage of the scene now works his magic in a red barn behind
Bodega’s Northern Light Surf Shop. Call 707-876-3032.
Jamie Murray: High-school English teacher and transplanted East Coast surfer who, upon moving to Sonoma County, couldn’t fi nd a shaper who would make him the kind of board he wanted — something with more volume than the waferlike “glass slippers” then in vogue. So he made his own, and hasn’t looked back. On Instagram @headhighglassy.
On a busy summer weekend, tens of thousands of visitors are drawn to our Sonoma Coast, a rugged environment of land and sea where a single moment of questionable judgment can quickly evolve into a life-threatening situation.
The job of keeping everyone safe falls to a shockingly small corps of firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, and park rangers operating within a tenuous web of overlapping jurisdictions. Somehow, they manage to keep the summer from descending into chaos.
It was a run-of-the-mill ropes operation on the Sonoma Coast—which is to say it was complicated, technical, and dangerous. A Mendocino County resident had stopped for a bathroom break about 8 miles north of Jenner during a nighttime drive in the summer of 2016, and had tumbled down the rocky cliffs in the dark. Members of the all-volunteer Timber Cove Fire Protection District received the call around 10:12 p.m. and quickly set up a system of ropes and pulleys.
Two firefighters harnessed in and lowered themselves into the void. The victim’s family wasn’t sure exactly where she’d gone over the edge, and it took two hours of drifting and scrambling to locate her. Finally, Timber Cove Fire training officer Nichole Lynn found her huddling in a bush.
“She was a little cold, definitely scared, and (had) just a few minor scrapes to her face and her nose from sliding down the rock,” Lynn told The Press Democrat at the time.
It may be a typical medical call, but we just had to hike a half-mile to the beach to get to it. There’s always another layer of complexity.” – Fire District Captain Justin Fox
The relieved klutz licked the firefighter’s face all the way back to Highway 1. Marshmallow was a 35-pound pit bull puppy with a lot to learn about safe pooping practices. The pet owners resumed their drive home, and the Timber Cove crew added one more happy ending to the vast annals of Sonoma summertime calamities.
The warm months are here again, bringing waves of awed visitors to this spectacular coastline. And with them will come capsized kayaks and grounded boats, road-rashed cyclists and limping hikers, victims of dehydration and cardiac arrest, swimmers caught in riptides, cars deposited onto rocky ledges they were never meant to visit and any number of random mishaps that become all but inevitable when you set loose a horde of carefree revelers in an environment of rugged land and sea.
In 2019, before the Covid pandemic took a bite out of tourism, Sonoma County welcomed 10.2 million overnight and day visitors. Not all of them came between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, and not all ventured to the coast. It just felt like it.
“As early as noon sometimes, our lots are maxed out—what we call full visitation,” says Tim Murphy, a ranger at Sonoma Coast State Park.
The job of keeping these thousands of daytrippers safe falls to a shockingly small corps of first responders. At any moment during the summer, the on-duty staff of firefighters, cops, state and regional park rangers, California Highway Patrol officers and Coast Guard personnel patrolling the Sonoma Coast might amount to a few dozen.
They cover a twisting, 50-mile stretch of California Highway 1 that unwinds from Bodega Bay north to Gualala. Their beat is a puzzle of beaches, rocky ledges, muddy bays and estuaries, campgrounds, city streets and seaside hills veined with dirt trails— locations difficult to access. “It may be a typical medical call, but we just had to hike a half-mile to the beach to get to it,” says Justin Fox, a Sonoma County Fire District captain at Station 10 at Bodega Bay. “There’s always another layer of complexity.”
And of course, there is always the undulating power of the Pacific Ocean, which lures you with its beauty but cares little for your safety.
It’s a lot to handle. Summer is its own brand of mayhem at the coast for one major reason: There are so many more bodies to be bruised, scraped, and scorched. In other words, for emergency rescuers at the coast, the wild card is humanity itself.
“You get 5,000 people on a beach—that’s our target hazard,” says Station 10 assistant fire chief Steve Herzberg. The vast majority of calls to the Bodega Bay station, he says, are for illnesses and injuries that could happen anywhere, anytime: heart attacks, pneumonia, slip-and-fall fractures, and the rest of life’s painful embarrassments.
For Erich Lynn, chief of Timber Cove Fire District—and father of Nichole, renowned pit-bull puppy rescuer—the hardest thing about a summer emergency can be getting to it. More than half of his station’s calls, he figures, put his trucks on Highway 1. It’s a curving two-lane route with narrow shoulders and too-few pullouts, and it’s packed in summer.
Lynn says a lot of drivers freak out when they see the flashing lights behind them, and just stop in the middle of the highway, clogging up the response. Don’t get the man started on cyclists. “Bicyclists, they just don’t listen,” Lynn says. “They don’t pull over, they don’t stop. And sometimes you’ve got five or six riding together. Once you pull out to pass, you’re committed to the whole string.”
While acknowledging the challenges they encounter, first responders tend to project a similar theme: The system works. These folks have your back, even when you’re floating atop 200 feet of ocean.
The range of “situations” they face regularly is limited only by the imagination and questionable judgment of beachgoers.
Station 10’s Justin Fox recalled an incident a few years ago that seemed almost comical, right up to the moment it turned dire. Firefighters received a call about a citizen in distress. They scoped the ocean with their binoculars, and there he was: a young adult, in shorts and tank top, piloting a pink floatie shaped like a unicorn. He had drifted a halfmile south, and away from the beach. The unicorn was presumably bound for Mexico before they collected him.
In June 2019, a 54-year-old woman drove off a cliff just north of Salmon Creek. Investigators suspected it was a suicide attempt. She survived the crash, crawled out a broken car window before her vehicle burst into flames, and swam out to sea, where she was rescued by a firefighter from Station 10 in Bodega Bay.
In August 2021, a man and his six dogs (including five 4-week-old puppies) were rescued by the Coast Guard near Driftwood Beach, 9 miles south of Bodega Bay, after his boat lost power and he drifted in the ocean for a night. And last June, a driver in a Honda Civic went off the side of Highway 1 and rolled about 25 feet down a cliff just north of Russian Gulch State Beach.
If you’re wondering—yes, alcohol does play a significant role in much of this madness. That’s true anywhere. But it doesn’t help to have approximately a billion liters of available, world-class wine between Santa Rosa and the Sonoma coast.
“I don’t drink, so I can smell alcohol from 10 feet away,” says Timber Cove’s Erich Lynn. “People just get bored when they know the road so well. They get a six-pack in Jenner and head home. And a lot of people camp, drink all weekend and then drive home.”
Faced with such a panoply of unfortunate events, it doesn’t help that the interlocking teams of first responders are getting smaller.
When ranger Tim Murphy transferred from Orange County’s Huntington Beach in 1999, his State Parks division had about 20 sworn officers, he says. Now they’re down to eight, handling a busy jurisdiction that stretches from Bodega Bay north to Salt Point State Park, and inland to Austin Creek, including several campgrounds that must also be monitored. “It does take a toll in terms of a lot of overtime work,” Murphy says. “Call volume has gone up, and we have less officers to cover it.”
Erich Lynn says his fire department in Timber Cove historically had 21 to 23 on-call fire volunteers. He has 18 now.
To meet the coverage challenge, coastal emergency crews throw specialization and territoriality out the window. Agencies here tend to do a little bit of everything, working hand in hand with one another in overlapping jurisdictions.
They certainly do at Station 10. It’s like any other firehouse in America, except this one is perched on a hill with a view of a sliver of Bodega Bay. Visitors are often greeted with the sound of barking seals, carried in on the breeze.
Calling Station 10 a fire department is a bit like referring to George Clooney as a tequila salesman. The description is accurate, but it isn’t necessarily the main thing they do. According to Steve Herzberg, the Bodega Bay firehouse responds to about 20-30 fires a year, compared to 25-40 marine rescue incidents.
That’s thanks in large part to Fox, who helped create the station’s boats program a decade ago.
The Bodega Bay fire crew, a volunteer company until Sonoma County Fire District absorbed it in 2022, was always around the water, of course. Until 2012, however, their jurisdiction more or less ended at the surf line. That didn’t make any sense to Fox, who noted that the commercial fishing fleet anchored at Bodega Bay makes up a big part of the town’s tax revenue. Weren’t the men and women of the local fleet entitled to the same level of care as shop owners?
To meet the coverage challenge, coastal emergency crews throw specialization and territoriality out the window. Agencies do a little bit of everything, working hand in hand across overlapping jurisdictions.
Staffing and maintaining a boat program wasn’t an easy sell for a community-supported volunteer fire department. Why do we need this, residents would ask Sean Grinnell, the station chief at the time. “Because we have an ocean,” Grinnell would answer.
Indeed they do, and it’s a squirrely one. Riptides. Side currents. Sleeper waves. Rocky shoals and sandbars. Drunken boaters. Water temperatures in the mid-50s throughout much of the summer. Beneath that soothing surface lies a video game full of risks.
Not every visitor answering the siren song of Sonoma’s coast understands the nuances of this stretch of the Pacific. That can be true especially of those escaping 100-degree days in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, or vacationers more used to the smaller waves and gently-sloping shores of Santa Monica or the Eastern seaboard.
“While some spots on the coast are quiet and sort of calm in appearance, as far as the water is concerned, it’s still the Pacific Ocean,” says Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office deputy Rob Dillion. “And our coast can be particularly rough. There are scenarios where the weather is absolutely beautiful, but the swells and the water are turbulent. You’ve got currents moving through. People get themselves in trouble. And the ocean is not forgiving.”
There is a Coast Guard station in Bodega Bay, too. The military post has larger boats, including an 87-foot patrol boat, and takes the lead on search-and-rescue operations. The Coast Guard is also charged with ocean law enforcement, in the rare event it’s necessary.
Station 10’s smaller craft can perform shallow-water operations, and unlike the Coast Guard, Station 10’s rescue crew includes paramedics. The bigger of its two craft, not surprisingly, also has firefighting capabilities. It’s the only technical fireboat between the Golden Gate Bridge and Humboldt/Arcata Bay in Eureka.
Seagoing entities from Station 10 and the Coast Guard are frequently aided by Henry 1, the all-purpose emergency helicopter operated by the Sheriff’s Office.
The chopper is stationed at the Charles Schulz-Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa and is responsible for a huge coverage area. But Henry 1, like the rest of us, winds up spending a lot of time at the beach during the summer. In fact, the Sheriff’s crew flies regular patrol runs—west along the Russian River from the airport, down the coast, around Bodega Bay and back.
The Henry 1 pilots, Dillion says, are trained to fly in winds that would ground many helicopter pilots. It’s one of the few air units in the region capable of longline rescues, those made-for-TV operations involving a hovering aircraft and an officer dangling on a rope like a stalled yo-yo.
The Sheriff’s Office also has three deputies assigned to the coast—at points north, central, and south. All three live in their assignment areas, turning their homes into de facto substations, and allowing them to develop an understanding of both the people who live around them, and the vagaries of the coast.
Henry 1 pilots often fly in conditions that would ground other pilots. They’re also trained in longline rescues, those made-for-tv operations involving a hovering aircraft and an officer dangling on a rope like a stalled yo-yo.
“They’re witnessing the rapidly changing power of the ocean—and the cliffs and coastal line, and how it’s always changing,” Dillion says. “They’re seeing the flow of people in and out on the weekend, and how the weather plays a role. If something goes wrong, we have people who have been there.”
State Parks plays a huge role, too. They have one lifeguard tower, at Goat Rock, though it’s rarely staffed outside of holiday weekends, Murphy says. Most of the time, State Park rangers not busy elsewhere cruise along Highway 1 or on one of the three beaches they’re permitted to drive—Salmon Creek, Goat Rock and Wrights. The others are too rocky and impassable.
A lot of the public safety net at the coast could best be defined as saving us from ourselves. No one begrudges anyone from visiting. On the contrary, the emergency workers share the compulsion to breathe in a little salt air on a hot summer day. But man, can a rescuer get a little help?
If you’re going out in a canoe, maybe tell your family, Murphy says. Read the signs at the beach; they may be telling you about rip currents or the absence of lifeguards. Spend a minute on the National Weather Service’s website or on windy.com before you set sail.
“Even on a calm day, I really caution people not to turn their back to the ocean,” Murphy says. “I know you can take lot of scenic pictures that way, but if you have a large groundswell, you won’t see it when that powerful water rushes up the beach. That’s probably most of our rescues out here.”
Hearing these stories can make you wonder: Why would anyone sign up to do this work? Stretched-tight resources…traffic hazards…terrain that fights you in a hundred different ways…stupid human tricks, performed daily. It must be the worst job in America.
Except these on-call heroes will tell you it’s the best. Herzberg, long before he was an assistant fire chief, was a lawyer. In that job, he says, he frequently brought chaos to peace. Now he brings peace to chaos, a role he cherishes even at 78 years old. And let’s face it, the outdoor “office” where these first responders labor each day probably has a better view than yours.
“It’s still a beautiful place to work,” Murphy says. “On a bad day, depending on what the circumstances are, just going outside and collecting your thoughts, and seeing the beautiful Sonoma Coast can give you some perspective.”
Sneaker waves
The cautionary tale: On September 21, 2021, a large wave swept a 28-year-old woman onto the rocks at Goat Rock Beach. She injured her ribs and head, and was airlifted to a Santa Rosa hospital.
Don’t let it happen to you: Large swells can come out of nowhere. You can’t see the monster coming if your back is turned.
Unstable cliffs
The cautionary tale: On July 27, 2019, a man tumbled over a cliff while hiking near Coleman Beach, sustaining severe facial injuries.
Don’t let it happen to you: The rugged Sonoma coastline was formed by erosion. Stay a few feet from the edge, and you won’t become part of the scenery.
Shark attacks
The cautionary tale: While surfing off North Salmon Creek Beach on October 3, 2021, 38-year-old Eric Steinley felt something clamp down on his leg and drag him underwater. He fought off the shark but wound up with a severed nerve that required several surgeries.
Don’t let it happen to you: Despite the terror they evoke, shark attacks remain rare. That said, it’s always a good idea to swim or surf with others nearby.
Rough seas, strong currents
The cautionary tale: Tragedy struck three boaters, including a child, on July 31, 2021, when their 10-foot aluminum skiff overturned in choppy seas near Salt Point. One adult drowned.
Don’t let it happen to you: Know the ocean currents, check the weather, and make sure you have the experience—and the equipment— for the job.
Sonoma County has never had a love affair with clubby steakhouses — manly, dimly lit, leather-and-cigar-scented temples of aged beef and expensive whiskey. While expensive steaks are certainly on high-end local restaurant menus, local steakhouses are rarer than a properly cooked filet mignon.
This week, Healdsburg bucks the trend with Goodnight’s Prime Steak + Spirits, where a shareable 42-ounce Tomahawk steak will set you back $200, more than 80 brands of whiskey grace the bar menu and high-back tufted leather banquettes create private sanctuaries for diners.
Located on the Healdsburg Plaza, the restaurant is part of an ever-growing list of Foley Entertainment Group eateries backed by wine mogul and entrepreneur Bill Foley including (locally) Duke’s Spirited Cocktails, Chalkboard and the still-in-flux Burdock. The group also owns international restaurants, wineries and hotels, the Vegas Golden Nights hockey league and other entertainment and hospitality assets.
Chef David Lawrence, a familiar San Francisco culinary figure whose projects include Fillmore 1300 and Black Bark BBQ, will head up the culinary program. The steakhouse is a return to a familiar format for the Brit who cut his chops at London steakhouses with his Jamaican-born father.
The menu is inspired by cattle wrangler, Texas Ranger and inventor of the chuck wagon, Charles Goodnight. He was a prominent rancher and herder on the 19th-century Western frontier, the owners said.
“Goodnight played a pivotal role in herding untamed Texas Longhorn cattle in the vast expanse of the Texas panhandle. His rugged toughness, adventurous spirit and inventiveness are expressed throughout the restaurant’s culinary and beverage programs and what can only be defined as Texas-sized hospitality,” said a news release announcing the restaurant’s soft opening on Tuesday, Aug. 1.
The menu will lean heavily on steak (Wagyu, New York strip, rib-eye) but also includes seafood and well-crafted vegetarian options like housemade linguine with ricotta, eggplant, blistered cherry tomatoes and chile crisp oil. Much of the produce will come from Foley’s nearby Chalk Hill Estate Winery. Lobster thermidor — a throwback dish of lobster, cheese and cream made famous in the early 20th century by luxury hotels and restaurants — also appears on the menu.
The wine list is, not surprisingly, heavy with Foley-portfolio wines. Mixologist Devon Espinosa heads the lighthearted cocktail list.
Goodnight’s is at 113 Plaza St. in Healdsburg. Reservations are available online at goodnightsrestaurant.com. Open daily for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m.
USA Today has announced its annual 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards, highlighting “the best of the best” in the U.S. in categories such as food and drink, lodging and things to do. This year, 14 Sonoma County businesses were among the winners, which were chosen by a panel of experts and then voted on by USA Today readers. Click through the above gallery to see the local winners.
Sofia Englund and Charlie Swanson contributed to this article.
USA Today has announced its annual 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards, highlighting “the best of the best” in categories such as food and drink, lodging and things to do. Among the winners this year are two Sonoma County tasting rooms.
Sonoma’s Corner 103 and Glen Ellen’s Benziger Family Winery were named among the 10 Best Wine Tasting Rooms of 2023 — Benziger came in at No. 9 and Corner 103 at No. 2.
Nominees within this category, like other 10Best categories, were chosen by a panel of USA Today experts. Readers were then allowed to vote once per category, per day, for four weeks before the contest closed and the top 10 were announced. DAOU Vineyards in Paso Robles took the No. 1 spot this year. Napa Valley’s Turnbull Wine Cellars also made the list, at No. 7.
This is the fourth time Corner 103 makes USA Today’s Best Wine Tasting Room list. Last year, the tasting room on the Sonoma Plaza also took the No. 2 spot. It was named the best tasting room in the U.S. in both 2020 and 2021, topping the USA Today list.
“The staff provides an educational and comfortable tasting experience,” wrote USA Today about Corner 103, founded by Lloyd Davis in 2015. The downtown Sonoma tasting room remains outstanding for its tastings of limited-production wines, such as sparkling rosé, chardonnay, pinot noir, zinfandel and malbec.
Benziger Winery, a popular destination for its eco-friendly estate and its sustainable approach to winemaking, was named among the Best Winery Tours in 2022 by USA Today (it came in at No. 4 on that list).
This year, USA Today wrote that Benziger offers “a tasting experience that goes beyond sipping wine.” Wine expert Ziggy Eschliman described it as “nirvana” and said the tasting room is particularly enjoyable “thanks to a friendly and wine-savvy staff.” Eschliman also mentioned the tasting room’s gift selection that includes “fun cheese and food treats.”
Click through the above gallery for a peek at each tasting room and stay tuned for updates on more local winners of USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards 2023.
There’s something extra delicious about dining with sweeping vineyard views and coastal expanses, especially when the ingredients are hyperlocal. We’ve found more than a dozen restaurants in Sonoma County where you can drink in the view and fill your belly and soul — plus two worth the drive to Marin. Click through the above gallery for details.
Sofia Englund, Dana Rebmann and Carey Sweet contributed to this article.
Summer is in full swing in Sonoma County and local hotels are making the season even better with new updates and offerings — from freshly renovated rooms and restaurants to decadent brunches and Moroccan dinners. Click through the above gallery for details and a peek at the properties.
