April 20, 2009 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2' to 3', occasional 4'
High dropping tide	No wind
Bright sunny day, heat-wave	Fun session

The weather has changed. We were into a typical Spring April with big NW winds. Last Wednesday and Thursday 30 MPH winds created havoc at the beaches: white caps for miles, Lawrence of Arabia sand dunes and nine-foot swells at six seconds. The winds stirred up the water, bringing the cold water from the bottom to the surface, dropping the water temperature to 46.8 degrees, the coldest I have ever heard of in Marin. Water temperature is always coldest in April due to the NW winds, and this year it set a record. A heat wave often follows the winds. High pressure rushing into low-pressure areas creates the winds and once the high pressure settles in temperatures go up. Today the heat wave begun: 75 to 80 degrees at the beach and 90 degrees inland.

Boards on top of cars greeted me when I arrived at Bolinas this morning, not a good sign. From the seawall I saw Marty, Hans and Matt walking on the beach near the Groin. Why weren’t they in the water? Though small I saw some tempting, glassy lefts at the Channel. The tide was high and no current was moving in or out of the lagoon. They stated that at first they were discourage, but after getting a first hand look they had decided to go out. Knee-high curls, glassy smooth, in a heat wave, of course one goes out.

Suiting up next to Matt I commented that I had not seen him for a long time. He had been out of action for two reasons: a pulled groin muscle and work. The groin kept him out of the water for weeks. As he put it, he’s older and things don’t heal as quickly as they used to. Also, he was now working three days a week, which for Matt was perfect. Matt does the computer drawings for a land surveying company. The recession has slowed things down, but fortunately in Marin home remodeling provides steady work. There are plenty of affluent ones who tear down houses to build new ones. Matt’s outfit does the site plans for the remodels. This was Matt’s first session in ten weeks and it was a good one. He connected on several rides and had not lost his form. Afterwards he claimed he over did it and felt pain in his groin; but it was a good pain. He was going home to ice it down and to soothe his soul with a six-pack of Russian River Ale that he just had purchased.

Mark the archaeologist showed up. He had just returned from a trip down south. For their 50th anniversary, Mark treated his parents to a weekend stay in a two-bedroom bungalow on a pier in Pacific Beach in San Diego. The location was super and the surf was up, good longboard waves for two days solid.

Our expectations were low, but the waves delivered; just clean two to three-foot swells that broke in both directions. The lefts, which broke in shallow water, were better than the rights, which broke in deeper water and died after take-off. The lefts hummed continuously in one direction for a long ways. I caught one good one; a three-foot set wave, the third in the set, thus all the others were inside having caught the first two waves. I paddled out to meet it, stroked into a cresting wall, got up early, positioned myself high in the wave, hooked the inside rail just under the lip of the curl, stepped to the center of the board and cruised though a fast section. The wave began building up again, I stepped to the ¾ point on the board, crouched down and hummed down a steep face until it broke in front of me and I dove into the on-coming white water. What a great ride.

After an hour and a half the tide dropped, the current started flowing out of the lagoon, the swells broke up into a series of small ripples and the wind picked up. It was time to go. All of us felt good about going out. It was a beautiful day and a good session. We vowed to return Wednesday and were looking forward to the three-foot, 17-second south swell that was predicted to arrive on Thursday.