Alexander Mountjoy - Blog & CV

Occidental, CA
(707)874-1047
www.innatoccidental.com

The Inn at Occidental is the preeminent lodging place in Occidental and is worth the price if only for the pleasure of browsing the Inn’s extensive collection of American Folk Art—casually displayed throughout the common areas and the hotel’s guest rooms.  The feeling is of staying in the (especially well-kept) home of a well-heeled and aesthetically calibrated art collector.   The Inn is housed in a Victorian mansion that overlooks the town from a slight remove upon a hill. Run with hands-on care by Jerry Wolsborn and his wife Tina whose culinary experience is behind the superb breakfasts and afternoon wine and hors d’oevres.

Though we further from the San Francisco Bay than our Marin brethren, Sebastopol, Occidental and other West County lovers of dinghy racing have available to them all the same great offerings.

As an ex-collegiate racer, my passion remains with the small boats.  My favorite fleet is the Vanguard 15 fleet, www.vanguard15.org, which races out of Treasure Island every Thursday night during the season, which runs from the beginning of Daylight Savings Time into September.  There are typically 20 or more boats on the line.  Courses are short and there are 5 races a night on average.  First gun is at 6:30 PM, and we sail ’til dark.  There is a laser class too.  Thought the competition is fantastic–most participants are ex-collegiate sailors–the fleet is friendly and every evening afterward one of the members hosts a little party with refreshments and snacks in the club house at the sailing site.

Concurrently, and also weekly during the season though on Tuesday nights instead of Thursdays is an organized team racing practice, also held in Vanguard 15s.  As with the fleet racing, the competition is top-notch and the fleet welcomes new participants.

As my boys near high-school age, my goal is to develop a high school team and practice area in nearby Bodega Bay.  Anyone living in Sebastopol, or thinking of moving to the area who would have an interest in helping me establish a program, please let me know.  And if you live in Sebastopol or Occidental or Petaluma and are interested in sailing Vanguard 15’s on Tuesdays or Thursdays and would like to carpool down, also let me know.  It’s against the traffic commute and well worth the time but it would be great still to share the driving.

Wells and water are necessarily of concern to anyone buying or selling country real estate in West Sonoma County. Without adequate water supply, otherwise excellent pieces of land are unbuildable and therefore worth only a fraction of their what would otherwise be their value. For this reason, well tests, which measure the ability of a well to deliver potable water consistently over a period of time, are normally performed when a property is sold, either prior to the listing by the seller or during the escrow process by the buyer. A well test takes a few hours typically, and provides a good opportunity for any party to the transaction to learn about wells from the testing technician. I gathered the facts below from Ray Carlson, a veteran of the well drilling and testing business in Sebastopol, Occidental and surrounding areas of West Sonoma County.

-For a good all around reference for septic, well and water treatment systems look to the book
“Cottage Water Systems” by Max Burns.

-Well pumps are typically of the submersible type, being more energy efficient and, crucially, capable of delivering water from a depth required by most wells. Modern submersible pumps are 72% efficient. Dual pipe jet pumps, a type of surface pump are by contrast only 35% efficient, since they need to push water down before they can bring it up. Single pipe pumps are limited in depth by the physics of the atmospheric pressure. At sea level, this limit is 28 feet. As a rule of thumb, in Sonoma County, we use 25 feet.

-Bucket wells have the advantage of incorporating storage into the well itself. They are typically cased with concrete rings. Older wells are often of this variety.

-Contemporary wells are typically 9 7/8” holes with 5” pvc casing, back-filled with either gravel or sand. The region of pipe that is within the water bearing zone is perforated. The well driller, by a process known as “reading the cuttings” determines by the look of the drill product and the depth the location of the water bearing zone.

-Certified well tests take between 8 and 12 hours and must show a sustainable delivery rate of 1 gallon per minute per connection, that is, per dwelling unit.

I was surprised when I first began to learn about wells in the vicinity of Sebastopol that dowsing remains a trusted means of finding water. When a well is drilled, a dowser–a person who uses a forked stick, balanced in his or her hands, to detect the presence beneath them of water, is as likely to be employed for the job as a geologist. Sometimes both cooperate to accomplish the task.