The Bodega Harbour Country Club

By

Blair Jett

Everyone knows about Bodega Bay, California, made famous by Alfred Hitchcock`s movie `The Birds`.

I lived in Bodega Bay from 1982 through 1988 & worked as a security guard at the Bodega Harbour Homeowners Association. The BHHA has an 18 hole golf course, country club with a pool, sauna, restaurant, bar, yacht club, & more. The BHHA at the time had about 250 homes & the potential for well over 1000. It was like a mini town within a town.

I worked the graveyard shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.. Now working alone most of the time in the middle of the night like that is bound to make even a person with the strongest mind have the ole mind play tricks on them & I had a few experiences there, but I know were not just mind tricks. The country club usually closed around 9 or 10 p.m. & one of my job duties was to walk the grounds inside & out to make sure everything was secure.

Other guards had mentioned odd experiences in the past & there were numerous times when I could feel that I was not alone in there at night. Not to mention that there was an indian burial ground on the premises & a few years earlier the Chief Of Security`s son committed suicide at the Yacht Club by shooting himself. Another problem was that this place was notorious for finding unlocked doors at night, I`m sure it was simply because most employees forgot to lock them.

One night around 1 a.m. I pulled up in front of the Country Club & prepared to do my usual walk through of the three story structure. Clearly everyone had gone home long before & I was the only one around for half a block or so. As I walked in the front door I immediately heard the sound of a woman crying & I could hear her speaking spanish between her sobs. She sounded like an older heavy set hispanic woman. I took about 5 or 6 steps into the building and then the thought hit me..."wait a minute...I`m the only one here!" A typical response from a 23 year old man like myself is to run, and so that`s exactly what I did,

I turned around & ran out of the building into the parking lot. My heart was racing & my mind was flipping out. My first instinct was to call for back up, but the only back up was my boss & that would require him getting out of bed and driving there. There was really no point in calling the Sonoma County Sheriffs Department, because most of the time back in the 80`s the nearest patrol unit would be 30 to 45 minutes away. Even more frightening was what if this turned out to be a false alarm? I`d sure hate to get people out of bed or have law enforcement come all the way from Sebastopol or the Russian River area for nothing! So I took a moment to collect my thoughts & convinced myself that I had no choice but to calm down, be a man, & go back inside the Country Club.

I walked back in there & searched all three floors, from the sauna & swemming pool, to the restaurant & bar. I was creeped out the whole way & it felt like I was being watched the whole time. I looked behind every door, crack, & crevice, but never found a thing.

Now there are some that would say "Oh it was just your imagination!"....Wrong! I know the difference between imagination & reality and this was reality!

One reason is because this sobbing & woman`s voice speaking in spanish lasted for probably about 5 or 6 seconds as I walked in the door. The door had an automatic spring load & closed by itself a few seconds after it opened, and the sobbing spanish voice lasted the whole time until the door slammed shut a few seconds later. As if this ghost shut up as soon as it heard the door slam.