July 28, 2008 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
9:30 am to 10:30 am	1’ to 2’, sets to 3’
Mid upcoming tide	Slight NW cross breeze
High fog – couldn’t see tops of the hills	Waste of time

“Barry, how are you?” I greeted Barry the excellent local longboarder as he was stroking out to the Channel. “There’s not much out there,” I continued. 

“Are you kidding, I saw some great waves come through,” Barry shouted as he continued paddling out to the furthest peak at the Channel. 

“I wonder what he is looking at?” Dan commented to me. For forty-five minutes Dan and I had being going through the frustration of going for small ripples on the inside just north of the Groin wall. We’re there because the inside curls had some speed whereas the waves at the Channel were soft, mushy, difficult to catch and quickly peter out. The Internet surf sites predicted small four-foot local wind swell at eight seconds with a two-foot south swell at fourteen seconds. Thus there was some possibility of waves. My surf buddies Doug, Marty, Kathy the biology teacher and Mary had come out early and had left by the time I entered the water. The waves were tiny, weak, walled and disappointing. 

Ten minutes later Barry connected on what he had been seeing. He was way, way out there when a decent set came through. I was sitting 100 yards inside and north of him and had a good side angle view of his ride. With great board speed he stroked into a flat swell, caught it, stood up, went straight to let the swell build, angled left, and stepped to the center of the board to build up speed. The wave continued to build up. Barry stepped closer to the nose, the swell was shoulder high, it jumped up, began to feather at the top, Barry got into a crouch, trimmed through a beautiful steep section, cut back to let the wave build up again and then crouched through another steep section. It was a great ride and the only one that morning. This was a “rogue” wave and Barry was on it. Believe me, all the other waves were knee high, mushy, walled and unmakeable. Barry definitely caught the wave of the day. 

Soon after that Dan and I went in. The water was cold. Two weeks ago the water was an unheard of 60 degrees. This morning’s buoy report had the water temperature at 52 degrees and it felt much colder than that. After one hour my hands were losing sensation. Earlier when I was taking photos, I watched Doug come in and chatted with him. He was shivering as he complained to me how cold it was. 

“I need a new wetsuit,” Doug lamented. “My knees are coming through this one.” Just like the holes in your jeans when you were a kid, Doug’s knees peaked through the threadbare exterior of his wetsuit. 

“Doug, buy a new wetsuit. You deserve it,” I said. 

With numb hands I struggled out of my booties and wetsuit. It was a cold, frustrating morning.