July 21, 2008 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
8:00 am to 10:30 am	2’ to 3’ sets to 4’
Low upcoming tide	Slight offshore breeze
High overcast	Fun session

“Dan, I saw your picture in the IJ last week,” I greeted my friend Dan as he emerged from his camper. The Marin Independent Journal printed a two-page spread of photos and commentary on “Surfing and Zen at Fort Cronkhite.” The article had a photo of Dan in his swim trunks sitting at the table in his camper. 

“Yeah, I wish the reporter could keep his facts straight. I’m from Fairfax not Bolinas, and you know the surf was really lousy that day,” Dan responded. 

“I take it the photographer pulled out his best shots from the last six months,” I added. The surf photos were pretty good.

“To the contrary, he had just purchased a water casing for his camera and that was his first day taking water shots. You know that great shot of Nate in the barrel was pure luck.” The article had a picture of our friend Nate, one of the owners of the Proof Lab Surf Shop, with the lip of a wave pitched over his head and Nate in a tight crouch. Nate is a very good surfer. Only Kelly Slater and Nate could get barreled in two-foot slop. 

“Dan, are you going out?” I asked. 

“No, I’m going to get some breakfast first to let the tide fill in then I’ll go out,” he responded. Good move; an hour later when I saw Dan in the water the tide had come up a bit, the waves were more forgiving and I saw him connect on a couple of great rides. Twice Dan took off on well-shaped small left walls, with his back to the waves he crouched down, grabbed a rail and made it through the initial sections, stood up and glided down the good inside curls. 

I had high expectations for good waves. All last week Stormsurf was predicting the second major south swell of the season for Sunday into Monday, three-foot plus swells at seventeen seconds producing five-foot faces at south facing beaches. The waves were two to three feet at Bolinas. The next day Stormsurf printed an apology about the surf not being as big as they predicted, something to do with a screw up in one of their many weather models for the east Pacific. I have been relying on Stormsurf for thirteen years and that’s the first time I had read an apology for one of their predictions. 

When I arrived there were eight people out at the Groin and no one at the Patch or the Seadrift side of the Channel. I watch Kathy and Clark, the biology teachers, paddle across the Channel to Seadrift to go for the fast breaking right waves. Jimmy the Stinson carpenter soon joined them. By the time I entered the water half of the crowd at the Groin had moved over to Seadrift to join Kathy and Clark. 

The waves at the Groin looked great; clean, fast, left breaking curls, but they were breaking too fast and in very shallow six-inch to one foot of water. By the time I got up the ride was over. Barry, a long-time regular at Bolinas, was making them. He sat way outside, waited for the sets, paddled hard, got up good board speed, managed to get into the waves while they were still flat, turned quickly, positioned himself high in the curl and calmly walked to the nose. Following his lead I tried to do the same with some success. I connected on a few very fast, crisp, thin curls. Those few waves made my whole morning. 

In his talk at Book Passages, Gerry Lopez talked about surfing being a series of brief moments that last for a long time. Steven Kotler in West of Jesus stated that surfing is instants, short spans of a few seconds that have one returning and returning to repeat those instants. This morning was my time of brief instants. The flashes of being for a brief second locked into a well-shaped bluish-green curl, feathering white spray blowing off the top, shooting under the lip of the wave were firmly burned into my memory. For that it was a good morning.