January 2, 2008 Wednesday

Bolinas	Seadrift side of the Channel
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2’ to 3’, sets were 3’
High (5 ft) fast-dropping tide	Offshore breeze
Sunny but cold – high 40’s to low 50’s	So-So session

The holidays are over, my iHome alarm didn’t go off, I awoke from a deep sleep at 5:59 am, just in time to wake up Kate to keep her on schedule. Branson resumed classes today. I got the coffee while Kate began her routine to get ready for school. We left right on schedule and I succeeded in getting Kate off to work on time. Let’s keep those paychecks coming.

At 7:50 am I arrived at Bolinas, Marty and Ray’s cars where there with boards still in the vehicles. Doug pulled in behind me. He had just returned from purchasing a coffee and a breakfast burrito from the stand next to the Coast Café. “I’ve never seen it so flat,” was Doug’s greeting.

Doug and I walked down to the seawall at the end of the boat ramp. Marty and Ray were there. All three had arrived before 7:00 am but due to the high tide and no sand, the swells pushed up against the seawall and the cliff and didn’t break. They were waiting to see if conditions changed when the tide began dropping. High tide was 5.7 ft at 6:30 am dropping to a low tide of 1.1 ft at 1:00 pm. Already a rapid outflow from the lagoon had formed with a current that arched all the way out in front of the ramp. As we chatted we witnessed a couple of descent right breaking waves on the far side of the current on Seadrift side of the channel. We watch professor Steve do his morning ritual of paddling from the ramp to the Groin and back.

David the Mill Valley piano-tuner arrived. We had not seen him in weeks. Then Roger McGehee and his teenage nephew Jason showed up. They had spent the night in a nearby motel. Roger was introducing Jason, who was very excited, to surfing. More waves came through the Seadrift side of the Channel. Firemen pay attention to weather reports, and thus Ray commented that an in-coming storm, due to hit tomorrow and last until Saturday, was bringing five inches of rain and lots of wind. That did it. Our best chance to surf was today so we decided to go after those waves on the other side of the channel outflow.

I took the above photo from the cliff above the Groin. You can see the strong river flowing out of the lagoon and a glassy offshore breeze swept small curl on the Seadrift side of the channel. That’s where we went.

To get there I walked past the Groin wall to the narrowest point in the channel. The current was swift; my guess was six to seven knots. I figured I would dash to the other side and then walk to the break. I entered the cold water and immediately felt myself being swept out the mouth of the lagoon. In a few minutes of frantic paddling I made it to the other side.

The waves were beautiful but the rides were short. The waves were small lines that stretched across the channel, perfectly smooth, offshore spray coming off the top, the sunlight pierced through the crests creating an emerald, transparent effect and continuously breaking to the right. They looked perfect. However, they were walled and impossible to make. In wave after wave, I paddled in late, got up quickly, turned right, looked down a beautiful green line with white feathering spay ten to fifteen feet in front of me. As soon as I built up some speed, the waves would break in front of me, pushing me into the white water and causing me to lose all my momentum.

In ninety minutes of catching waves, I didn’t make any of them. The swell would hold up for quite a distance but would collapse in front of me every time. I was determined to make one. I kept saying to myself to squat down and grab a rail through the white water, or climb high in the curl and walk to the nose. Easier say than done. Here’s the best I did: on a good size three foot wall that was clearly shaped to the right, I took off late, jumped up quickly, turned sharply into the wave, climbed high in the curl, stepped to the center of the board to gain speed, planted my feet parallel on the rails-mid board and stood there bull-legged. For a brief second or two I hummed down the curl. The wave then broke, forcing the outside rail to dig in and pitching me forward into the water and sending the board over my head. I was lucky it didn’t curl into my knees or back. That’s the best ride I had this day.

It was approaching 10:30 am, the tide had shifted and the waves were breaking up into a series of ripples that mushed together. David had already paddled in, Marty was paddling through the river of out flowing current at the Groin, my hands and feet were freezing, so I decided to call it quits and go on in. I took a small wave to the shore and then walked to the narrowest point in the channel. The speed of the current had increased. I jumped in and started frantically paddling. Because of the speed at which I was moving I thought I was making a lot of progress. However, I was moving out the mouth of the lagoon faster than crossing it. Finally I made it. I landed in front of the Groin wall stairs, which this day all four steps were visible. This past summer, all of the steps were buried in sand.

In my opinion, it was a So-So session; a beautiful day, picturesque waves, short wall rides and freezing water. But all of us: David, Marty, Doug and I claimed as all surfers do that it was a great session by the mere fact that we got into the water.