July 8, 2008 Tuesday

Bolinas	Groin
8:30 am to 10:30 am	2’ to 3’, occasional 4’
Low tide – 0.5 ft at 10:00 am	No wind, zero, zip, nada
Heat wave – sunny, hot and glassy	Fun session

Mark the cancer survivor stroked out to the Groin and greeted me with, “Hey I keep hearing about that elephant seal story.” He is referring to my May 28^th entry about seeing an elephant seal catch and devour a small shark. 

“It happened right over there. We were sitting here when it happened,” I responded. 

“Every time is I hear that story the shark gets bigger, three feet, four feet, six feet, eight feet. What was it?” 

“Three to four feet,” I said. 

“It must have been a tiger shark,” Mark stated. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t get that close to it. Within minutes the seal had broken it up into pieces and ate all of them. There was nothing left.” 

When I pulled up this morning, the dawn patrol, the biology teachers Kathy and Clark, Professor Steve and Doug were out at the Groin catching small left waves. They were back at their cars as I was suiting up. 

“So how were the waves?” I asked Doug. 

“Terrible! Simply terrible,” Doug responded. Yesterday Doug’s assessment was right on. He stated it was better that it looks and he was right. But, today he was wrong. The waves were great. 

Northern California was going through a heat wave and a rash of 700 fires, thus it was hot, there was no wind and the skies were hazy due to the smoke. It reminded of my younger days of growing up in Los Angeles in the sixties. The lack of wind has caused the swell to clean up, the bumps that were there yesterday are gone, and the surface is glassy smooth. The swell was down slightly but it was clean. This morning’s buoy report had the north swell at 4 feet at 10 seconds and the south swell at 1.0 foot at 14 seconds. The above photo is Professor Steve on a typical wall of glass. 

There was nobody out when I paddled out. A couple minutes later Jimmy came knee paddling over from Seadrift. Like yesterday we traded waves. Jimmy again wave after wave crouched down in the middle of his board, locked himself into the curls of these glassy walls and either let the wave break over him or straighten out at the last moment. He told me that his favorite board, the sun weathered pintail, was falling apart from wear and that he needed a new one. What was he going to get? He’s going to make a new one. He makes all of his boards. I told him the story of receiving a surfboard kit for Christmas when I was thirteen, using a friend’s brand new 9’0” Hobie as a template, shaped it, glassed it and used it for five years. 

After 30 minutes Jimmy left and Mark paddled out. Mark and I traded waves. We had the peak to ourselves. Long clean lines were coming in. Being selective I connected with several good glassy green walls. On one good one, I got high in the wave, stepped to the middle of board, as the curl stood up I stepped closer to the nose, there I stood for 50 yards until the wave collapsed on the sand. Mark commented, “You sure milked that one for all its worth.”  One good wave after another Mark and I connected with for a good hour. 

“Mark what gives you the opportunity to surf on a Tuesday morning?” I asked. 

“I’m working from home today. I was up at 4:30 am doing email and connecting with the office. I have been spending a lot of time in the Bakersfield area and had to make an appearance at the office.” 

“What do you do?” I was curious. 

He paused, looked straight at me, “I’m an archaeologist,” he said. “I’m not in academia. I work for a large engineering firm. We’re working on an oil exploration project.” 

“Do you contribute to Environmental Impact Studies?” I asked. 

“Yes. I work on all the regulatory studies,” he added. With the rise in oil prices, the oil companies are reactivating all the old oil fields around Bakersfield. Mark is looking for ancient Indian artifacts and reports on them. He stated that they have uncovered a ton of stuff that is over 6000 years old. One artifact was a shark’s tooth with a small hole drilled in it. It must have been part of a necklace; a necklace from the coast that inland Indians traded for. Six thousand years ago there were two large lakes in this region forming the most fertile part of California and thus a lust area for the ancient cultures. The lakes, which were formed during the last Ice Age, disappeared a hundred years ago, drained by the water demands of the settling of the Central Valley. I thought it was cool to be riding waves with an archaeologist who is an expert on the ancient Indian societies of California. 

After two hours I was spent and had to call it quits. A heat wave at the beach is wonderful: sunny, no wind, warm, smooth blue water and the satisfaction of having ridden some beautiful fun waves.