August 31, 2009 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
8:50 am to 10:15 am	2' to 3', occasional 4'
Mid upcoming tide	Offshore breeze
Overcast - high fog on the ridge	Exercise session

Hot chicken broth with udon noodles was the perfect remedy for overcoming this morning’s cold water at the Channel in Bolinas. Mary, Hans and I had lunch at Umi Sushi Restaurant in San Rafael. Umi is owned and operated by our Bolinas surf buddy Yoshi and his wife Atsuka. We had talked about coming here for weeks and today we finally did it. Umi presents sushi with a surfing flare with brightly colored paintings of waves and the ocean on the walls. In the above photo, a graphic artist friend painted the mural behind Yoshi. The Japanese lettering is “Umi,” which means ocean.

Yoshi explained that the noodles were hand made by his wife this morning from his grandmother’s recipe. Yoshi’s mother taught Atsuka how to make them and they were good. Mary ordered the chef’s special rolls: four different rolls, all light and delicious, spicy tuna, barbecued eel and California rolls. Hans had the udon noodles with kakiage tempura (shrimp). It always fun to have the cook come over and talk about the dishes. We all felt it was the right amount of food, we didn’t feel stuffed and it was delicious.

Yoshi had to show us his latest surf magazine in Japanese. It had the look and feel of the mags that we are use to, but all the writing was in Japanese characters. He pointed at photos of the top spots in Japan and talked about the upcoming surf contest in October at Trestles for Japanese surfers. Yoshi learned to surf in San Diego when he was a teenage exchange student. With luck his second host family lived in San Diego near the beach and they introduced him to surfing, a love he is still pursuing today. Later, Yoshi spent ten years in Santa Cruz working as a sushi chef and surfing Streamer’s Lane on a short board. Eighteen months ago, he and Atsuka moved to San Rafael, opened their own place, Umi, and Yoshi switched to longboard. Nowadays he hits Bolinas in the mornings for a short surf session then heads back to prepare the day’s specials.

The surf this morning was nearly non-existent: small peaks at the Channel that had no push. The weather had changed. Friday we had a heat wave, today we were back to the normal August gloom: high drippy fog, cold north breeze and a small wind swell. And the water was cold. Last night there was considerable wind that must have stirred up the cold water from the bottom. The water temperature had dropped five degrees from Friday. My hands burned when I first dipped them in the water. The offshore breeze smoothed off the surface and held up the peaks, making them look very inviting. But they had no punch. I would take off, drop down a nice peak and then the wave would just go limp and die. Slowly I worked my way north of the Groin wall to the shore break where Mary was in hope of finding some waves with thrust. But it never happened. After an hour and a half it was time to go to lunch.

The waves were so-so, the lunch was fabulous, all enjoyed with good friends, it was another great morning in Marin.