October 16, 2009 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2' to 4', sets to head high
High upcoming tide (6.2 ft at 10:30 am)	No wind to slight onshore breeze
Sunny and warm	Fun session

“It must have been an adventure coming in,” I said to Barry who had just finished his session.

“Adventure!” he replied. “Coming in was the most adventurous part of the morning. There is a hole at the base of the ramp. I jumped off my board a few feet from the ramp thinking I was in two feet of water and dropped up to my neck. I had to swim with my board to get out.”

The first major storm of the year had just swept through the Bay Area brining six inches plus of rain to Marin and 50 MPH winds. Remnants of a typhoon that hit Japan caused this storm. The typhoon pushed northwest across the Pacific, hit land in Japan, traveled north and got caught in the jet stream that blew moist air east to slam into the west coast of the United States.

The storm had passed, the wind died, warm sunshine returned and a storm generated 6 ft 12 second west swell was hitting Bolinas and Stinson. All the local surfers, including myself, were anxious to get back into the water. At 8:00 am twelve surfers were at the Groin and two (Mary and Russ) were at the Patch.

The storm had swept the sand off of the beach in Bolinas. With no sand to impede the water, a 6 ft high tide and a strong west swell, the waves surged half way up the ramp. Three-foot walls of water crashed into the seawalls on both sides of the ramp, making it impossible to walk in front of them. The above photo, taken by Matt, demonstrates the force of the waves hitting the seawall. I was observing the crashing waves and thinking that high tide wasn’t for another two hours. Getting in and out of the water was going to be a challenge. I put my leash on at the top of the ramp, walked cautiously down the ramp, waded up to my waist, waited for a lull between waves and launched myself into the water. Jack the Dave Sweet team rider called out to me from the top of the stairs to the seawall. He was dripping wet, had his board in hand and had just exited the water and walked across the top of the seawall. I could only glance at him because I had to focus on the approaching walls of water that were about to shoot up the ramp.

Coming in was also an adventure. After my session at the Groin I came into the beach and connected with Claude, his friend and Paul. We watched the waves slamming into the wall that protects the house on the south side of the ramp. A four-foot wave would crash against the wall, send a plume of water shooting up to the living-room windows of the house and a two-foot backwash wave would come surging off the wall and out into the in-coming waves causing the white water to leap high into the air. We had to re-enter the water to paddle around turbulence of the waves hitting the seawall.

“What’s the plan here?” Paul asked. This was his first time confronting waves surging up the ramp.

“We’ll paddle to the north end of the seawall and go in where there is sand,” I answered. Once on the sand we would climb over the boulders that form the foundation of the wall, walk along the top and down the stairs to the ramp.

That was the plan. When all four of us were straight out from the ramp, Claude and his friend decided to give the ramp a try. I stopped paddling and sat up to watch how they did. Claude, who is a big guy on a big board, is a strong paddler. He slowly started paddling for the ramp, he let one wave go by and starting stroking hard between waves. The first wave crashed, sent water shooting up the ramp, Claude went into high-gear stroking like mad, water rushed back down the ramp and Claude paddling as hard as he could stayed stationary until all the water had run down the ramp. Then the next wave crashed and pushed him up onto the ramp. He was in.

After seeing him struggle, I decided to stick to our original plan to paddle around the north end of the wall. Paul and I continued on. I have done this entry before and remembered coming in between the two rows of pilings from an ancient pier where there was sand and a few small rocks. Today a four-foot steep embankment of six-inch rounded stones greeted us. All the sand was gone. We paddled another twenty yards north before finding a patch of sand and went in without incident. Paul didn’t have on booties and had to walk across twenty yards of stones and crawl over big boulders in his bare feet. We made it onto the seawall and down the stairs to the ramp without any problems.

The waves were fun but nothing special, thick and slow. The tide was too high and the waves were difficult to catch. After paddling for and missing several I finally connect with a sizeable wall that was breaking on me. I turned left, coasted down one section, cut back to stay in the swell and let up build up on the inside. I was near the Groin pole and noticed that the wave was peaking to my right. I swung around to the right and a nice steep inside curl formed in front of me which I rode all the way to the shore. Malibu rights were breaking. Often with a big high tide, a good right peak forms off the end of Groin wall and peels along the contour of the shore toward to mouth of the lagoon. “Great, I will go for the rights,” I said to myself and paddled back to just beyond the end of the Groin wall. I connected on several good little right curls. I would ride them all the way to the shore, end up in a foot of water, pick up my board, walk up the beach around the Groin wall and re-enter the water at the Groin pole. Then after a short paddle I would be in position for another one. For forty-five minutes I worked the small right curls. Two others were with me doing the same thing. Claude would catch waves on the outside, ride them all the way in and would join me for one or two rights before venturing outside again.

After changing, chatting with others, walking into town for coffee I decided to check out the waves one more time before leaving. The sun was out, the sky clear, the wind had died and it was warm, a summer’s day. At 11:30 am, the high tide was backing off, the surf had picked up, the surface had glassed off and 23 surfers were out at the Groin.