One sketching destination in Bodega Bay I planned to visit was Hole in the Head. The head being Bodega Head.

When you visit the Hole today it is a serene pond with gulls bathing, sparrows singing from the trees, turkey vultures rocking in the overhead currents, and reeds gently blowing in the wind. But the 160 foot hole has a complicated past.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG &E) planned to build the first commercially viable nuclear power plant in the United States. And the site they chose for this new source of energy was Bodega Head.

In the late 1950s Bodega Bay was a fishing port surrounded by farms and grazing land. It was far from the tourist destination it is today and still a few years off from the film that put the area on the map: Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).

After obtaining permits, PG & E started construction on the power plant by digging a 160 foot hole for the foundation. Local resistance to the nuclear plant started in 1958. This also coincided with a growing understanding of plate tectonics and earthquakes.

The plant’s location was two miles from the active San Andreas Fault. The fault that slipped on the early morning of April 18, 1906 creating the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. They also discovered minor faults directly underneath the planned plant site. This combined with the protest (dubbed the “birth of the anti-nuclear movement”) put a halt to plans and construction ended in 1964 with a very deep hole in Bodega Head.

Overtime, rainwater filed in the deep pit and it took on the appearance of a placid pond. There is a boardwalk that takes you to the edge of the pond and a fence that prevents any swimmers. Hole in the Head is no kiddie pool, it is all deep end.

I walked out to the boardwalk and sketched the view of the historic non-nuclear power plant that launched a movement.