Stinson Beach | In front of houses of the |
9:30 am to 11:00 am | 2’ to 3’, sets to 4’ |
High, up coming tide | Slight on-shore breeze |
Sunny, high clouds and cold | Good shape, small curls |
As I pulled into the parking lot at Bolinas I saw Marty sitting in his car reading the paper and his board still on the top; not a good sign. He greeted me with, “There’s nothing.” He was right. There were no waves; the swells mushed up against the seawall at the base of the ramp at the end of Brighton Street. It was the same conditions as last Monday, the permanent high tide affect caused by deep water due to the removal of all the sand by last week’s storm.
Steve the poet and professor at Mills College paddled up from the end of his morning exercise of paddling from the ramp to the Groin wall and back. He mentioned he thought he saw a couple of rideable waves on the Seadrift side of the channel.
“Are you going over the hill to teach today?” Marty asked Steve.
“Not today, it’s a stay at home and work day. It’s end of term and I have to grade papers,” Steve stated with that ‘do I have to’ expression on his face.
Since we had such a good session Monday at Stinson, Marty and I decided to drive there to check it out. Nate McCarthy, Will Hutinson’s partner in the Proof Lab surf shop at Tam Junction in Mill Valley, and his girl friend were parked next to the Parkside Snack Bar outside of the park. They recently moved to Bolinas and surf every morning before heading over the hill to open up the shop.
“Two waves, I’m going out for two waves and nothing more. I would already be out there if it wasn’t so cold,” Nate greeted us.
Marty and I suited up and joined them. They were out in front of the houses of the Calles, which is where we were on Monday. The surf looked the same up and down the beach, but I figured that since Nate is such a good surfer he knows where the best peak is located. What a good call. Glassy knee high curls, my kind of wave. No fear factor, just pure fun.
I asked Nate how’s business. “We’re keeping the lights on,” he replied. I then inquired about any up coming sales on wet suits. I need a new one. “Come in to the shop and I will give you a good price on a suit.” Great. The message was clear. Don’t wait for a sale he will give a discount. No problem, I’ll be there. I believe in supporting friends and local businesses. Nate was true to his word. I saw him catch a couple of great left curls and then he left. “Time to go to work,” and he and his girl friend, who is also an excellent surfer, were gone.
So Marty and I had the break to ourselves. Beautiful glassy waves that curled at the top, landed in the middle of the swell and then slid to the bottom. This allowed one to catch the top curl and power through the swell at the bottom of the wave to pass the breaking white water, resulting in long, fast rides. Marty is improving everyday. He still can only go left, but there were plenty of good left waves, as well as good rights. I saw Marty catch a couple of good three-foot walls that he managed to ride a long ways before they closed out.
Marty and I were the only ones out but we managed to run into each other. Marty was a good ten yards to the south of me, when a sizeable four-foot wall came through. I paddled out to meet it, quickly turned around to catch it as it was feathering at the top. It was perfect right breaking wave. I barely got into it. It quickly started to close out in front of me; I was high in the curl, stepped to the center of the board and squatted down to gain some speed. I was making it, screaming down the line, and then I saw Marty coming in the other direction right at me. I froze. He froze. I was in the middle of the board and could not turn. We collided. The nose of my board went over the deck of his board and I dove off and so did he. Fortunately, we were not hurt and the boards were not damaged. I think my board hit Marty in the leg, but he claimed he was ok. After that, I kept a close eye on where he was located and avoided paddling for the same waves he was going for.
I caught one left wave that was extremely fast. It was three-foot wall; I took off late and quickly moved to the center of the board, gaining enough speed to get through the first section. The wave built up again, I got high in the curl, squatted in the center of the board and hung on. I was perfectly positioned in the wave, it curled over the top of the deck and I shot through a second and third section before the wave collapsed five feet from shore.
“Loren, my feet are numb,” Marty said after an hour and a half in the water. Despite wearing gloves, I was losing feeling in my fingers. “Marty it’s time to get out.” We both caught one more and went in. Aside from the cold water, it was a good session.
It was a beautiful and extremely clear morning. When coming down the Panoramic Highway, the Farllon Islands were crystal clear on the horizon. I could see the contours of one of them. “You should take a picture,” I said to myself. I had the camera at the ready. It was on the front seat with the 300 mm lens attached. I hesitated and then decided to do it. I pulled over at the top of the Insult Hill, the last up hill portion of the Dipsea trail where it connects with the highway. I took ten shots of the Bolinas-Stinson Bay. I even switched lenses to my 50 to 200 mm one to get better wide-angle view. Here I learned there is a real difference in the lenses. With the smaller one I could capture the entire bay. With the big one, even at its most distant setting, one cannot frame the whole bay. Afterwards, as I viewed the pictures on the computer, the shots were ok, not spectacular as I was hoping for.
All in all, it was another great morning in paradise.
No comments:
Post a Comment