January 28, 2008 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2 ft to 3 ft with sets head high
Low 2 ft tide dropping to 1.6 ft at 10 am	Offshore wind
Sunny with showers and a cold breeze	A So–So session

“Rain again! Damn when will this rainy cold weather end?” It’s 5:30 am and a light rain is pelting the bedroom window. I went downstairs to check the latest buoy report; 8 ft swell at 12 seconds and a 3.4 south swell at 14 seconds. The south swell is due to the storms of the past couple of days, which had strong south winds. Today the wind is from northwest. The graphic on Stormsurf.com showed a south swell pattern, thus Bolinas has some possibilities: a NW wind, which is offshore at Bolinas, with a south wind swell that comes straight into the south facing Bolinas. Also it’s Monday and I have made a commitment to Jamie to get him water samples every Monday and Wednesday. Thus I decided to go to the beach to check it out and to gather the water samples, and I also decided to take my running gear in case the surf was lousy I could go for a jog on the beach at Stinson.

As Kate and I left the house a blast of cold air hit us and the light rain was still coming down. “Doesn’t look good for the beach does it Kate?” I must be nuts. As I started my drive up out of Mill Valley the rain stopped and the sun came out. At Bootjack, I entered a cloud and the light rain returned. At Pantoll the rain turned to hail. On the west side of the mountain I dropped out of the cloud and the sunshine returned. From then on it was a beautiful drive to Bolinas.

Only two cars were parked on Brighton Ave at the tennis courts. Mary’s was one of them and her board was still in her car, not a good sign. She was on the seawall at the base of the ramp checking out the surf. The Groin and the Channel weren’t happening due to the strong out-going current. Straight out from the ramp there were some small waves with shape. The Patch looked small and ill formed. It was a wind swell with small peaks breaking in several different locations. We went up to the overlook above Brighton Ave. There’s an old public stairway behind the first house at the top of the ramp. This was the first time I had gone up this path. The above photo is the view from the overlook. As you can see there is nothing impressive happening in terms of surf.

Mary stated that she is going out. It’s been two weeks since she has surfed. In fact the last time was with me on Monday, January 14^th. She was itching to get back into the water and she was afraid she was losing her arm strength from the lack of paddling. Why would I go out? The water is cold and the surf doesn’t look very good. Here’s my rationale:

1. At the moment the sun is shinning and it’s warm,


2. Yesterday I had purchased new 5 mm booties and thick new gloves,


3. I have a new warm wetsuit that I have only worn two times,


4. It’s been 12 days since I have been surfing (January 16^th was the last time),


5. Per local weather reports, conditions don’t look good for the rest of the week,


6. A good surf buddy is going out, I’ll join her, and


7. There's no fear factor, the Patch waves are small and harmless.

We paddled way, way out there past the outside rock. The top of the rock was barely exposed; white water swirled around it. The waves were difficult to catch. The swells had some size but the waves didn’t have any force. We had to catch them as they were breaking. My first wave I caught the white water and maneuvered into a left breaking swell. It was a descent ride. On another, I caught the breaking white water of a large peak. I took it left, dropped down an overhead flat face with some speed and then the wave died. In most of our waves, we were going straight, forcing our weight forward to keep our boards in the swells. Mary caught the biggest wave of the morning, which was a head high wall of water that did have some push. She managed to ride this a long, long ways.

As usual for Bolinas, it was a beautiful morning. At one moment a full, half-circle rainbow formed over the bluff above the Patch. A minute later a light rain began to fall, then the clouds blotted out the sun and a strong, cold offshore breeze began to blow. Five minutes later the rain stopped, the wind died and the sunshine returned.

The tide and current were moving us out and to the north. We had to constantly paddle in to stay in the impact zone. After an hour with the tide turning, the impact zone moved further in. It took a while to figure this out. Mary and I kept positioning ourselves closer to shore. I went through a long period of paddling for waves and not catching them. I told Mary I was going to work my way inside and get out. A big set came through. We both paddled for the first one, which was sizable, cresting with white water, and we both missed it. I was closer in than Mary. She yelled to me, “Hey!” to alert me to the next wave. I looked back and it was breaking. I turned, paddled two strokes and was into it; finally a wave with some force. A big wall of water lined up in front of me, I forced my board into the curl, turned sharply to the right and staying at the base of the wave managed to get under the white water and back into the swell. I cut back to let the next section form, went through that curl, and cut back again and again into continuously forming right sections. The last section was the shore break at the beach that finally closed out. What a great ride and now I was twenty feet from shore. That’s it. I’m not paddling all the way out there again; this session is over. Once on the sand I waved to Mary who was still way out there. It was a good ending to a So-So session.