August 29, 2008 Friday

Pacifica	Linda Mar
9:15 am to 10:00 am	Consistent 5' to 6', sets to 10'
Mid, upcoming tide	Slight cross breeze
High bright sky with low mist like fog	Confidence building session

Big Boomers prevailed at Linda Mar this morning, Big Boomers.

I had just made it out having gone under white water of two waves and was resting north of the restrooms at Linda Mar when the first big set came through. I couldn’t believe the size of the wave I saw. It’s been a long time since I have been in swells of this magnitude. Coming at me was a mountain of blue-gray water that filled the horizon, stretching from one end of the cove to the other. My heart started pounding, my sight narrowed and focused on the top of the closest point of the wave to me, and I started paddling with all I had. I made it over the top as lip was beginning to feather with white water. I descended into a valley of water and looked up to see another huge swell approaching. Sailors understand this experience. A boat rises over a steep swell; the bow drops into the valley between seas and begins ascending up the face of the next wave. That’s what it felt like frantically stroking over these waves. After making it over the second wave, there was a third monster approaching, and I barely made it over that one also. This was certainly a wake-up call to pay attention to approaching sets. I didn’t want to be caught inside when these monsters came marching in. End-to-end walls boomed into curtains of water a hundred yards long. Kevin and I agreed these waves were at least ten feet. Every ten minutes a monster set of unrideable waves would come through.

Being a Friday before a three-day holiday, Kevin’s unit at work was slacking off. He called yesterday stating that this was a good morning to go surfing. I picked him up in the morning and we headed for Pacifica. The swell had come up overnight, a big wind swell with a long frequency period: west-north-west swell, 6.9 feet at 11 seconds and little to no wind. Stormsurf predicted six to eight foot faces at Pacifica and they were spot on.

A big crowd was already in the parking lot when we pulled in. Big walls were crashing out front. We could not see the north or south end of the cove due to a low, thin fog/mist. Ben, my old buddy from my days at Visa, and his friend, Brad were there. They had traveled up the coast from Half Moon Bay and reported on conditions down south: Kelly Ave was huge and closed out, the Jetty was flat due to the tide being too high, and Montara was also huge and closed out. Bottom-line: we’re surfing here. Kevin as usual had things to do, like a lunch with his work buddies in the City; we agreed to be out of the water at 10:00 am. Our strategy was to enter the water out front and then paddle north where the waves were bigger. Again my son was coaxing me into waves much bigger I am used to.

Having entered the water at 9:15 am, I had forty-five minutes. In that time I caught four waves, all of them overhead. The smaller waves, those five to eight feet, were rideable and quite good. To catch them I had to move inside and risk being caught inside by the monster sets. Fortunately, at Linda Mar one can see the sets approaching from a long ways off. I also kept a close eye on the guys sitting way out there. If they started paddling out, so did I. A sizable wall approached, it looked like it had some direction to the left and it was feathering at the top. I went for it. The wave was steeper than I realized, my board went vertical as I quickly jumped to my feet. I dropped half way down the face, looked up and the top of the wave was two feet over my head. With my heart in my throat, I powered below the white water that was sliding down in front of me, climbed back into the swell, stepped to the middle of the board, crouched down and sped across a huge wall of water. Now I was in control and worked the wave into the shore break. Wow, what a ride, I was ready for another one.

I connected with a right on my second wave, another large wall that was feathering at the top. I was paddling hard for it, felt the board rise up several feet as the large swell passed under me, thought I was into the wave, jumped up but I had jumped up too soon. I hung at the top of a steep, overhead wave. Oh no I was into it, I dropped straight down, stood on the tip of the tail block to keep the nose up, for an instance the nose dipped into the water and then bounced back up. I managed to hang on and out front of the turbulence of shoulder high white water. On my third wave I dropped down six foot left wall, was gaining speed when I had to maneuver around a guy paddling out, tried to power back into the swell but didn’t make it. On my last wave, I worked it into the shore break, pulling out within ten feet of dry sand.

Kevin and I had a great time and my confidence soared after having handled some sizable waves.

August 28, 2008 Thursday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 10:30 am	0' to 2', sets to 3'
High, in-coming tide	Calm, no wind, glassy
Heat wave, sunny and hot	Waste of time session

“Tide’s too high, the water’s too deep and the swell is too small.”

That’s my tag line for describing this morning’s session. The day was beautiful, clear and sunny with warm water but no waves. All the elements were there except swell. Stormsurf had predicted a local wind swell, five feet at nine seconds. This morning’s buoy report stated the swell was 5.6 feet at eight seconds from the northwest. Water temperature was 57.7 degrees at the buoy, which is several miles out to sea. The water at the Channel was much warmer due to shallow water in the lagoon heating up in the hot sun and pouring out at low tide.

When I pulled up this morning Marty, Mary and Doug were already in the water. Since it was so warm (the Bay Area was experiencing another heat wave), I had to go out. The waves were small and weak; two-foot ripples with an occasional three-footer. Once in the wave, the momentum died and you were left wobbling back and forth on a stationary board.

After a half hour, Marty, Mary and Doug went in and Mark the archaeologist came out. We kept moving around to find the best take off point. A set of beautiful waves came through the Channel, picturesque glassy peaks peeling in both directions. We paddled over there and the waves disappeared. From the Channel we watched a set of picturesque waves break at the Groin, so we paddled back there. I kept studying the white water but it moved around also. The most consistent spot seemed to be straight out from the Groin wall. There was a sandbar there. I tested for depth by standing up in the water. It was chest deep a 100 yards out from the wall, but move twenty feet north or south and the depth was overhead. I waded around testing for the edge of the bar. Mark and I positioned ourselves at the outer edge. Sets would hit the sandbar, jump up and break. We managed to catch a few decent take offs, but once up, the waves moved into deeper water and died. Short take offs into dying curls. After a half hour I caught one that took me close to the Groin wall, that was it, I gave up. For exercise I paddled from the Groin to the Ramp.

As every surfer states when the waves are lousy, “it was great to get wet.” Translation: the surf sucked.

August 26, 2008 Tuesday

Pacifica	Linda Mar
9:10 am to 10:00 am	Consistent 4', sets overhead
High tide	Stiff onshore breeze
Sunny and warm	Frustrating session

“Forty minutes, that’s not much time,” I stated to Kevin. We had just paddled out to the furthest peak south at Linda Mar in Pacific where the waves were smallest. He wanted to head for the next peak north to get into bigger waves.

“Lets pick a time to meet back at the car. When should we connect to get you to work?” I asked.

“Ten o’clock,” he stated.

“It’s 9:20. That’s forty minutes, that’s not much time,” I stated as Kevin headed north to the next peak.

I had to break the mold of just surfing gentle waves in Bolinas, so I ventured with my son to Linda Mar in Pacifica. Swell predictions for the week were small NW wind swells: two feet at Bolinas and four to six feet at Pacifica. The NW swells would go directly into the north facing Linda Mar cove. Linda Mar breaks better at high tide. Stormsurf had predicted that a weak high-low pressure gradient, which produces NW winds, would have an eddy effect resulting in light southwest winds along the coast. A southwest wind would be offshore at Linda Mar. Conditions looked best for Pacifica: four to six foot northwest swells, high tide in the morning and an offshore wind. Yesterday I called Kevin about surfing there in the morning before work. He was for it.

The eddy effect didn’t occur, the wind blew from the northwest and the surface was croppy. The waves were bigger than predicted and were stacked on top of one another due to the rough wind swell. From the amount of white water lining across the cove, I was apprehensive about the paddle out, which is why I went to the very south end. In forty minutes I only caught two waves. It was a frustrating session to say the least. I caught my first wave right away. A big wall came through, I didn’t think about it; I turned and stroked hard to get into. The take-off was flat; I pushed myself into it and then dropped over the edge into a head high wall of water. I rode this one a long ways, right up to the inner shore break. When I paddled back out to the lineup my confidence was high. I thought I had this place figured out. But for the next thirty minutes I paddled for wave after wave and caught nothing. The waves were deceptive. These large walls of water would come in looking like they were going to break fifty yards outside. But they didn’t; the swells just continued in without getting steeper. Others around me were catching them. I tried all my techniques. I positioned myself at the apex of the peak were the waves broke first. I studied the white water and sat in areas surrounded white water from a recent wave. I moved inside where the short boarders hung out. None of this worked. I paddled for waves I thought for sure were going to break on my back. But no, they flattened out and I was unable to push myself into them. Finally it was 10:00 am, time to go in, I had to catch one. I moved way inside. I was inside of every one else except the little kids of the surf camp. I caught one that did break on me, but even then I had to stroke like mad to get into the wave. Once up, I got a good ride on a four-foot curl and straightened out to coast up to the sand.

Of course like all surf sessions it was worth the effort. I felt that if I surfed here for three days straight I would have the place wired, just like all the locals.

August 22, 2008 Friday

Bolinas	Channel
9:00 am to 11:00 am	Consistent 3', sets 4', occasional 5'
Mid - upcoming tide	Onshore breeze
Fog, high overcast, gray	Good session

“We’re so lucky. Damn it, we’re so lucky,” exclaimed Mr. Throwback as we sat outside at the Channel between sets. Mr. Throwback was the older longboarder who surfed without a wetsuit or booties and rode an ancient sun yellowed board. This hard-ass was built like a truck, solid, no fat, bald head, and well-defined back muscles, a sign of a lifetime of surfing. I couldn’t tell if he was referring to the quality of the waves or the fact that he and I were over sixty and still had our health to go surfing. I took it he was referring to both.

The prediction for surf today was good. Yesterday Marty set me an email raving about how good the waves were. A few minutes later I received an email from Doug claiming that whatever Marty had said, it was better than that. Stormsurf forecasted a Gulf of Alaska swell arriving late Thursday that would carry over to Friday: seven feet at twelve seconds. At 5:50 am the San Francisco NOAA buoy reported a swell of 8.2 feet at 13 seconds with only an eight-knot wind. Possibility for waves looked good.

When I arrived the morning sickness was in: high fog, overcast, gray, stiff south onshore breeze and a textured surface. The crowd was at the Groin including Marty and Doug. Mary and Cathy were at the Patch. From the seawall with camera in hand I watched the Patch and waited, and waited and waited; nothing came through. I switched to the Groin and Channel where consistent sets came through; some with size.

It was another of those frustrating August mornings. Had the wind been offshore, conditions would have been ideal. But it wasn’t. The onshore breezed caused the waves to crumble quickly; making it difficult to connect with any decent curls. At first I tried the very north end of the Groin hoping to catch the edge of the peak. No luck, the waves were walled, resulting in short rides down the faces into bouncy white water. The crowd was growing. After an hour there were ten people at the Groin and three at the Channel.

To avoid the crowd I drifted more and more towards the Channel. By that time the tide had risen, the wind had died down, the surfaced had turned to glass and the shape of the waves had improved. Mr. Throwback came knee paddling out, he passed me and kept going to the furthest point of the Channel peak to wait for the sets. With the next big set he connected on a five-foot beautiful peak. I saw that and followed his example. Soon just he and I were way out there when another good set came through. A four-foot wall was approaching, he looked at me and said, “You gotta it?” “Yes I gotta it,” I replied and stroked into a beautiful fast-moving wave. I climbed high in the curl, cruise under the feathering peak, let the swell build up again and shot through another steep section. Finally a decent wave I said to myself and paddled way out there to do it again. Another good set came through, Mr. Throwback looked at me again, “take it,” he said, I turned and stroked into another beautiful wave. When I paddled back out I went over to him and said, “I owe you two.” “What are you talking about? You were in position,” he quickly snapped.

Mr. Throwback connected on another set wave wall. When he knee paddled back he stated, “What a fun swell. The last two days have been incredible.” I was surprised because per Stormsurf this swell came in late yesterday. He continued, “Yesterday I went out twice, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Both sessions were great.”

“You must live here,” I replied.

“Yes I do,” he said. He paused then continued, “I come from Southern California and we use to drive for miles to get waves this good.”

At that point I sensed that we had something in common. “Yes, Bolinas is really a good spot. Keep it quiet. I too grew up in Southern California, Palos Verdes.”

“Did you graduate from PV High?” he asked.

“Yes, second graduating class, class of 1963,” I replied.

“Then you are a couple years older than I am. I grew up in Hermosa Beach,” he said. I was right we did have something in common. We both grew up and learned to surf in the South Bay of Los Angeles in the old days; the days of longboards, no leashes, no wetsuits, no booties, no surf wax (we used paraffin wax used in canning preservatives), baggy trunks, and tar riddled beaches. We chatted about old times. We played the “do you know” game. We certainty had surfed all the same spots: Hermosa, Manhattan Beach, Haggerty’s, Bluff Cove and Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes.

I never asked him why he didn’t wear a wetsuit. He obviously was old school, and this morning he was happy and excited about being in the water. “We’re so lucky, damn it, we are so lucky.”

Now I’m sure he was referring to our health. We’re both over sixty and have the health and the strength to surf everyday. I feel that I can surf as well now as I did when I was eighteen, and I’m sure he feels the same way.

August 20, 2008 Wednesday

The Greeter of the Panoramic Highway

Meet John the Greeter of the Panoramic Highway. For the past year, I have seen John on my return trips from the beach to Mill Valley. From the same location between Mountain Home and Four corners, John happily waves to and salutes all the cars and trucks that pass by. The first few times I didn’t realize what he was doing. After a short number of trips I realized that the same gentleman was always in the same spot waving to the cars. Depending on time of day sometimes he wouldn’t be there. I passed a couple of times when he was setting up for his day. Twelve noon is when he arrives. After a few months it became clockwork. Every time I passed after 12:00 pm regardless of day of the week, John would be there. I waved back, and now I roll down the window, toot the horn and shout, “Whoa, John. Have a good day,” and he waves back. Other drivers also toot and wave to him.

Seeing John there happily waving at everyone reminded me of the Greeter of Laguna Beach. For three summers during the fifties, my dad rented a house on the beach at Crystal Cove just north of Laguna Beach. What a wonderful period of my life. I slept on the covered porch of a twenties style wood-frame cottage and listened to the waves boom all night, played in the warm sand and got creamed by the heavy shore break. Those days started my lifetime love of the beach. Many times we traveled into Laguna Beach, and there on the corner of the main downtown intersection stood a tall, lanky guy with shoulder length hair and a big gray beard. Remember this is the fifties, the period of butches and flattops, seeing an adult male with long hair and a beard was weird. He waved and hooted, “hello” to every car and individual that came by. “Who is that?” I asked my dad. “He’s the greeter. Wave to him.”

“Hey,” I shouted from across the street and waved. In a booming voice he called out, “hello,” and waved back. He had a pleasant countenance and gentle smile. What a hoot for an eight year old like me. Every time we went into town, he was there. I looked forward to seeing him and for the opportunity to return his greeting.

The Greeter is part of the history of Laguna Beach. For thirty-three years, from 1938 to 1971, he stood on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Foster Ave in the very center of town and greeted all comers. Eiler Larsen was born in Denmark in 1890, traveled and worked in Europe and Russia, immigrated to the United States, attended college in Minnesota, enlisted in the Army to fight in France during the World War I, and was wounded by artillery fire that caused him to walk with a cane for the rest of his life. He worked on Wall Street as a messenger during the booming twenties and in the Depression he wandered to the fields of California along with hundreds of Dust Bowl migrants. From picking fruit in San Joaquin he headed south to Laguna Beach to visit some artist friends and there he stayed. He worked at the Pottery Shack and was a part time gardener. In 1938 at the age of 48, he took his position on the corner as The Greeter.

The townspeople slowly adopted him as one of their own. In 1959 some residents complained he and his booming voice were a nuisance, but a poll by the town newspaper showed that 88% of residents wanted the Greeter to stay. In 1963 the town council proclaimed him the town’s Official Greeter and Goodwill Ambassador; an unpaid position with unofficial benefits of free meals and a low rent room at the Hotel Laguna. In 1967 a group of locals raised $3000 to send Larsen home to Denmark for a six-week visit after he suffered a stroke. Eiler Larsen died at a nursing home in 1975 at the age of 84. Today there are two statues that commemorate the Greeter. One is at the entrance of the Greeter’s Corner Restaurant, located where Larsen use to stand, and a colorful concrete statue by Charles Beauvais that stands at the corner of PCH and Brooks Street in front of the Old Pottery Place.

“I don’t care who they are, they all respond to good will,” Larsen once said. “Some don’t even speak English, but they understand anyway. It’s my eyes. They project. They reach every car and every person, and they give the message of goodwill.”*

Now we have John giving goodwill on the Panoramic Highway. If you are ever in Laguna Beach look up the two statues of the Greeter, and the next time you travel the Panoramic Highway in the afternoon between Four Corners and Mountain Home look for John and wave.

If tooting my horn and waving brightens the day of a friendly soul, I will do it every time.

* “Laguna Beach Greeter Left Indelible Mark”, Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2008.

August 15, 2008 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
9:30 am to 11:00 am	Consistent 2' to 3', sets 4' to 5'
Mid up-coming tide	Stiff south breeze
Fog, overcast, gray, cold	So - So session

“Morning sickness, that’s what we call this, morning sickness,” explained Pete to Jeff and me as we were checking out the Groin. He was referring to the cold, overcast, dreary morning. There was a good swell but the surf was blown out. Pete’s sickness consisted of a high fog, a cold stiff south breeze, gray skies, a croppy surface and white caps out at sea.

We watched Marty, Jim and another young guy catch some decent waves. The young guy was a good longboarder who surfed without a leash. He caught two long, fast, nose-rides, which peaked my interest. Then on a four-foot wall, he fell during the take-off and his board came all the way into the shore. This is why one wears a leash, to prevent long swims. The leash was a great invention and for the safety of others, a surfer should always wear one. The above photo depicts the retrieval of the board.

Meanwhile the gloom discouraged Pete and Jeff from going out. They kissed it off and left. The weather pattern has been like this all week. I came down on Monday and it was the same: cold, windy, blown out and the waves half the size as today’s waves. On Monday as I walked back to the car after deciding not to go out, Ray was there taking off his wetsuit.

“Man, are you hard up for waves,” I greeted him.

“What do you mean? Conditions were great earlier: no wind, glassy smooth and a good peak in the Channel,” he said. “I moved over to the Seadrift side and caught a couple of good rights. While paddling back out, the wind started blowing. Where did it come from? Within thirty minutes everything turned to junk.”

Doug came walking up from the beach still wet and his board under his arm. “It’s all Ray’s fault. If it hadn’t been for those two good rights, I would have never gone out,” he said. “By the time I suited up and got out there, the wind had come up. It was terrible, just terrible.”

Mark Twain was speaking about this August gloom when he said; “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Fog and wind are typical of this time of year. Per the Chronicle article, Fog Heaven, by Carl Nolte, the Bay Area fog is caused by:

• Winds around the Pacific High, a semi-permanent area of high pressure, circling clockwise due to the Earth’s rotation, push ocean surface waters south and away from the coast.


• The resulting current causes an upwelling of cold water from the ocean depths.


• The cold surface water cools the air above it causing moisture to condense into fog.


• Warm air in the sun-heated Central Valley rises and is replaced by cool ocean air, which draws the fog inland.

According to Bay Area meteorologist, Jan Null, this August is normal, well within the realm of normal variation, and again Point Reyes is the second foggiest place in America behind the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington.

With the fog came this ruinous south wind that brought the crop and the white caps. The San Francisco buoy reported northwest winds at six knots, but the buoy is located several miles off the coast. At Bolinas, the wind was from the south and was much stronger than six knots. Had the wind been offshore, conditions would have been ideal. Stormsurf had predicted the first pulse of the season from the Gulf of Alaska would arrive today and they were right. It arrived this morning. Per the buoy report, at 4:00 am the swell was WNW four feet at eight seconds, and at 5:00 am the swell jumped to five feet every sixteen seconds out of the west.

I had expectations of good waves when I left my house; a sixteen second west swell would go right into Bolinas. Despite the morning gloom, crop and white caps, I decided to go out. The swell was building, the tide was coming up and often the fog lifts and the wind dies by 10:00 am. Stormsurf stated this swell would peak today and then subside over the next three days. I hadn’t surfed for a week and was anxious to get some waves. The fog, wind and crop remained constant while I was out there. I did manage to catch a couple of head high waves, big drops into bouncy rides, nothing of note to write about.

During a low, I paddled over to the Professor, “Professor is that your car I have seen parked for a week in front of the tennis court?” His ancient Volvo with a board locked inside hadn’t moved for days.

“You mean my storage unit?” he said. “I went camping for a week and when I returned the car had died. I’m waiting for my mechanic to return. It’s got a bad fuel pump.”

“The battery must be dead by now,” I added. “Yeah that too,” he said.

Surfers never admit they wasted their time. I did manage to catch a couple of sizable waves, got plenty of exercise and enjoyed connecting with my friends. When walking back to the car, a guy who was suiting up shouted out to me, “You’re smiling, it must have been good.”

It was. It always is.

August 8, 2008 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2', sets to 3'
Mid dropping tide	Onshore west breeze
High fog	Fun session, knee high curls

I was in two-foot slop at the Groin thinking I’m Gerry Lopez trying to look so smooth, cool and casual on these tiny curls. I’m currently reading Gerry’s book, Surf is Where You Find It, which is a collection of forty-one of his stories from a life time of surfing. It’s a wonderful book and I’m loving it. Gerry looks so calm and relaxed in those critical bombs at the Pipeline. So this sixty-three year-old with the mentally of an eighteen year-old is trying to mimic Gerry on these two-foot crumblers.

I arrived late at 9:00 am just as Doug and Marty were walking up the ramp from their early morning session. Doug was freezing, “It’s winter in August out there, and it’s better than it looks.” Marty went with me to check out the waves. No one was out, the Patch was flat and the Groin had a few barely surfable waves. I almost didn’t go out. I hadn’t surf in a week. I came out here Monday, took a look at the blown out ripples and decided to jog on the beach at Stinson instead. I needed some paddling exercise so I decided to go.

Another guy entered the water with me. He was young (early thirties was my guess), had a nine-foot board and knee paddled out to the waves. Other than that he was a beginner. We gained some rapport out there though he stayed far from me. He was impressed by the good, long rides I caught. This young surfer made the common mistake of beginners of being too far back on the board when paddling for a wave. People starting out over compensate for pearling (having the nose of the board go straight down when the wave begins to pick up the board). Pearling is short for “diving for pearls.” Being too far back, the nose of the board is up out of the water at a fifteen-degree incline, which impedes movement of the board through the water. To gain maximum efficiency, a good surfer positions himself such that the board is as parallel to the water as possible. Paddling with the nose elevated out of the water, my young companion had trouble catching waves. He only caught waves that broke on top of him.

I wanted to go over to him and give him a surfing tip. But how could I do it without offending him? Maybe he has been surfing for several years and knows what he is doing? I observed some more. No he was just learning. I came up with a strategy and even rehearsed it in my mind. I would paddle over and ask him how long he has been surfing. If he says that he is just starting out I would offer to give him a tip. The opportunity never presented itself; he stayed clear of me. I’m well aware that surfing next to someone who is much better than you is intimidating.

Meanwhile the waves were fun; knee-high curls with some speed, just my kind of wave and there are only two of us out there. After an hour six more people joined us, the wind picked up and the waves became mushy. A couple of more set waves and I went in. Despite the cold and the gray overcast, I caught several fun waves and got some good exercise.

August 7, 2008 Thursday

West of Jesus by Steven Kotler

“They waited for most of the afternoon; there was no change, not even a ripple. Just when they were ready to leave – another ZAP, another lightning strike. The waves appeared in the exact spot where the lightning had struck. Of course they formed perfect tubes. They caught waves all afternoon, right up to the point when there were no more waves, they just stopped, just turned off, pond flat. That’s when they saw him. The old dude who conducts the waves with a baton made from a human bone. They tried to paddle out to the Conductor right then, but they never got there. The Conductor just seemed to drift away. It was the same the next day and the day after that. He was always there but he was always drifting away.”

Steven Kotler in West of Jesus chronicles his three-year quest to find the origin of the Conductor tale – the story of the mystical surfer who conducts the seas, swells, lightning, winds and waves with a baton of a human bone. In a seven-year span, Kotler had heard this fable twice, in two distant locations (Indonesia and Mexico). Both times he was surfing big waves in unfamiliar locations, wiped out, got dragged over coral and rock reefs and nearly drowned. When he finally paddled to safety, a companion paddled over from considerable distance to tell him that he had just been worked over by the Conductor.

Kotler’s quest takes us on an adventurous journey of waves, philosophy, spiritual reflection, scientific studies and just plain fun. When it begins, he is a journalist publishing articles in men’s magazines. He also has Lyme disease, which leaves him physically weak. At one low point a friend drags him to Sunset Beach in Santa Monica, the gentlest wave on the California coast, to go surfing. I’ve surfed this place. Believe me, the Patch in Bolinas is Bonsai Pipeline compared to this break. The experience revives him, knocks him out of his doldrums and he is back into surfing. Surfing had saved his life. He books a surfing trip to Mexico, has the bad wipe out and hears the Conductor story again. Now he is determined to find the origin of the Conductor tale and contemplate the lure of surfing.

Nobody he knows has ever heard of the Conductor story, there’s no surf literature about it and even the Joseph Campbell Foundation had nothing about it. Kotler breaks the story into its components to analyze each one:

• The surf quest,
• Hint of Eastern mysticism,
• Weather and wave control, and
• Flavor of tropical mythology.

The surf quest begins with Bruce Brown’s 1964 classic movie, The Endless Summer, which sets off quests by thousands of surfers to search all the shores of the world for the perfect wave. Kotler visited Bruce Brown and spent an afternoon surfing the Ranch with Dana Brown and Robert “Wingnut” Weaver.

Eastern mysticism came to America on October 14, 1965 with the Immigration and Naturalization Act of that year, which ended restrictive quotas and religious traditions from all over the world came to the United States, including Hare Krishna, Transcendental Meditation, Buddhism and Zen. Surfers were into enlightenment and free love long before the beats and the hippies.

Kotler concluded that the Conductor myth must have been a combination of the quest for the perfect wave and the quest of spiritual enlightenment, thus putting the origin in the late sixties.

What about weather and wave control? Kotler gives us a compact history of weather controlling gods, myths as well as scientific efforts such as cloud seeding and Pentagon’s project “Popeye” to cause massive rain on Viet Nam to turn the Ho Chi Minh trail into impassable mud. To no avail, in 1977 an international treaty banned weather modification activities. Scientists had given up on controlling weather, “We just don’t know.”

Flavor of tropical mythology is the Polynesian connection. The Joseph Campbell Foundation was of the opinion that weather modification came from planting and fishing societies. The Maori, descendents of the great Polynesian migration that populated New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and possibly Easter Island, fit that description. Kotler traveled to New Zealand to investigate the Maori, to surf and to write an article on New Zealand skiing. Again he found nothing regarding the Conductor tale, but he managed to get pounded at Raglan, New Zealand’s famous two-mile left point break.

Through his journey Kotler explores and learns a great deal. He takes us through a series of informative and different topics regarding ancient cultures, religion, ritual, fear, out of body and near death experiences. The reader is in for a real treat because Kotler is well read on all these topics. For each one he sites the latest philosophical or scientific study. He finally concludes that surfing is spiritual and boils the uniqueness of the sport down to a two-step process: catching the wave and riding the wave.

Catching a wave, especially big waves, feels like falling off a skyscraper, the height, the speed, the foreignness of the water, the vulnerability of being solo and the ferocity of the ocean produce a heightened adrenaline state. Riding the wave requires pinpoint concentration at a religious, meditative level. The sense of self disappears, time slows down and the feeling of oneness with the surrounding elements takes over. In surfing you go from a heightened fearful state to catch the wave directly into a Zen-like focus to ride the wave. No other sport has this combination of adrenaline to meditative rush.

Here are some examples leading up to the two-step combo of surfing. In New Zealand, Kotler encounters Grant a 300-pound Maori river guide who believed the only way to get the attention of the gods was through risk. “Got to be blood on the line.” This leads Kotler into a discussion of fear in religions and modern rituals of fear such as skydiving, bungee jumping and big wave drops and the chemical reactions in the brain during heighten states of fear.

Back in Santa Monica, Kotler has one incredible wave where everything connects, time slows down, sound stops, and he experiences freeze fame 360-degree vision. It only happened once and led to a discussion of out of body and near death experiences.

Kotler then goes into tales of super human feats during death threatening situations. The human brain during these moments drastically limits the amount of information, shuts down sound and memory to focus on the impending threat. A similar phenomenon occurs when athletes are “in the zone”. For Larry Bird at critical times in a game, the court goes quiet and players seem to be moving in slow motion.

Kotler finally travels to Hawaii. He had been avoiding it because of a commitment made to his dead friend Chris Marchetti, who had taught him to surf at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He promised Chris he would ride Chris’ favorite “Bonzer” board in the big waves on the North Shore of Oahu. Kotler connects with Tom Stone, a Pipeline surfer of the sixties, professor of Polynesian culture and who at age 54 has two surf companies that sponsor him. Kotler gives us some great insights into Hawaiian history and culture. He does manage to surf the North Shore on Chris’ Bonzer board and he does discover the origin of the Conductor myth, which he finds in the basement of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

“And every now and again someone rattles the bones of the past in the direction of the future in hopes that a wave will rise.”

It’s a great read. I give it five stars.

August 1, 2008 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 11:00	Consistent 3’ to 4’, sets head high
Low upcoming tide	Slight offshore breeze
Sunny and warm	Excellent waves, great session

“Damn! I busted my fin,” I said to myself. I’m standing in waist deep white water at the Groin examining the bottom of my board. My 9’2” Haut board has three fins, all the same size, six inches. The right one is split vertically in half, the front half of it, the sharp leading edge for cutting through the water, is gone. All that is remaining is the back half and the base which is still firmly screwed into the fin box. The bottom of my board has twelve patched holes and now a broken fin, which I will have to replace. 

I had just clobbered some kid going full blast. 

To my surprise the waves today were excellent, Bolinas at its best: three to four foot perfect, machine groomed, left peeling, fast waves, lines that marched across the entire surfing area from the Channel to the Groin to the beach with a slight offshore breeze that held up the curls. The Internet sites didn’t predict this. Stormsurf forecasted five-foot NW wind swells at nine seconds combined with a fading two-foot south swell. These are not unusual conditions, yet the waves were perfect. 

When I arrived I pulled into the last marked off parking spot; it’s 8:15 am and the parking lot is full, there must be waves. There were eight people out at the Groin and five at the Patch; Mary and Marty were out there. I watched Barry the good local longboarder score on three great rides within few minutes. The above photo is Barry on a good one. I went for the curls at the Groin. 

Josh the Bolinas fisherman was the furthest one out at the Channel peak. Josh who is about my age or maybe older has a unique style. He rides a longboard on his knees and is very good. I can tell from his paddling, positioning for waves, judgment and wave selection that he has been surfing for a long time. He sits at the center of the peak, waits for the sets and takes off late. Just before the wave breaks on him, he strokes once or twice, catches the wave, jumps to his knees, manually turns the board by grabbing the outside rail and leaning into the wave, locks himself in the curl and trims down the line. His technique is much faster for positioning in the wave than taking the time to stand up. Given today’s perfect waves, Josh was locked into curl after curl. 

I paddled over to Barry to tell him that I had a couple of good shots of him this morning. He told me that he had checked out my surf journal and enjoyed it. 

“I have a great shot of you from last January. So check out the January postings. It was on a Wednesday with a strong offshore wind and great waves,” I commented. 

“So who takes pictures of you?” Barry asked. “Someone should take shots of you.” 

“No one,” I responded. 

Last Monday Barry and I surfed the Groin and between then and today he had flown to Ohio, returned early this morning and was tired. “One wave and you are ok, right?” I commented. 

“Of course. As soon as I saw these waves, I was ready,” he responded. I too was exhausted from lack of sleep. Wednesday night Terry and I went to the George Thorogood – Buddy Guy concert at the Marin Civic Center, great show got to bed after midnight. Yesterday I was the “official” photographer for my wife’s writers critique group’s cupcake and champagne party. Cupcakes, champagne, late dinner in the City; again got to bed after midnight. We over sixty types cannot live the highlife like we use to. This morning feeling physically drained, I watched these beautiful waves coming through. I recalled many a time from my high school and college days going surfing with a hangover; merely stepping into cold water and catching one wave, the exhaustion melts away, adrenaline kicks in and one instantly perks up. It happened again this morning. One wave and I was into it. 

By the time I entered the water the crowd had grown to eleven and more were coming. With great waves and surrounded by good surfers, how am I going to get any waves? I reverted to my old tactic: sit inside, take off late and wait for an opportune moment, such as going for the second or third wave of a set or waves the everyone else lets go by. I used this strategy with great success. Once I saw a good wave coming, I would scan the surfers around me to see who else was going for the wave. I would watch their eyes, are they focused on catching the approaching wave or are they looking to paddle over it. Early in my session I caught three waves in a row where others decided at the last moment to let the wave go by. I would turned, stroke twice, push into the wave, quickly jump up, turn left, run to the middle of the board and crouch down through the initial section. For these three waves I made it through the first section, stalled a second and then shot through another steep section. For my two-hour session I used my tactic to catch one good wave after another. 

Near the end of my session, I was tiring, the wind was picking up and the crowd was growing. In came a beautiful wave, I carefully watched the eyes of the guy next to me. He was thinking about going for it, at the last moment he changed his mind and moved to paddle over the wave. That was my opportune moment; I turned, stroke twice and was into a great fast peeling curl. I climbed high in the curl, positioned below the white water sliding down from the top of the wave and crouched down in the middle of the board to shoot down a curl that was feathering twenty feet in front of me. There I was firmly locked in the curl, flying down a beautiful four-foot wave and two people, a young guy and a girl, are paddling out. I saw them and instantly calculated that I can make it in front of them. And I would have if they stopped to let me pass. But they kept paddling out. Now it was too late, I was going to hit them. They bailed out; the nose of my board went over the top and middle of the young guy’s board. “Wham!” my fin drove into the rail of his board, my board stopped and I flew off the front. Fortunately no one was hurt. I knew we hit hard so I examined the bottom of my board and saw that the right fin had broken in half. I paddled over to this kid, apologized for colliding with him, commented that we hit hard and asked if his board was damaged. He mumbled something and paddled off. 

I went back out for a couple more waves and then call it quits. This was one of my best sessions in a long, long time.