May 28, 2010 Friday

Bolinas	Channel & Seadrift
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2' to 4'
Low upcoming tide (-1.4 ft at 6:30 am)	Stiff NW cross wind
Sunny with high clouds	Exercise session

“What am I doing here?” Mark the archaeologist had just gone in and I was sitting all by myself 100 yards offshore straight out from the third house on the Seadrift side of the Channel. The surf was terrible: two to four foot close out walls, the water was cold and a howling NW wind was pounding my face. A seal peeked up its head twenty yards north of me. Shark food I thought, and here I am on May 28th in the exact spot where a shark hit Lee Fontan five years ago on May 31st. I had just peed in my wetsuit; something my friends tell me not to do because sharks can smell it. I don’t believe that wives-tale, but that didn’t relieve my uneasiness about the possibility of a nearby shark. That was when I decided to start paddling north back towards the crowd at the Channel. I would catch a couple of waves and exit the water on the other side of the Groin wall.

What started out as a promising morning had quickly turned into a big disappointment. The weather had turned. Yesterday it rained and south winds ripped up the waves. I awoke to sunshine, clear skies and no wind in Mill Valley. The south swell that Stormsurf had predicted had arrived: 2.4 ft at 17 seconds. NOAA’s buoy website reported no wind to slight NW breeze on the ocean at 5:50 am. Warm sunshine, a strong south swell and no wind, it should be a good beach day. The only negative was the minus low tide.

All the rocks of the Patch reef were exposed when I arrived. Frank and Andy two standup surfers had paddled out beyond the outside rock. Three others scratched for small, infrequent and slow waves. Four surfers were at the Groin going for the two-foot set waves that collapsed as continuous curtains on the shore. I convinced myself that with the tide coming up the waves would get better and besides it was a beautiful morning, thus I had to go out. Just my luck, the wind turned while I was suiting up. I stiff breeze greeted me as I walked down the ramp. The breezed turned to a wind and an hour later it howled. White caps covered the sea by the time I exited the water.

When the waves are bad, surfers move around in search of the better peak. It’s the “grass is greener” syndrome, the waves look better further down the beach, let’s go check it out. I entered the water between the Groin and the Channel. I saw a couple of good lefts break at the peak further south. I paddled over there. A little further south it looked better and I paddled on. Soon Mark joined me. He had started at the Patch and said it was terrible: slow, powerless waves. So he paddled to Groin and then to join me. With my encouragement, he followed me to the next elusive left peak. Soon we were at Seadrift, three houses in and the waves were the same. An athletic woman briefly joined us. She too was doing the “grass is greener” ritual. I had seen her enter the water at the Groin. She caught a couple of waves, and then paddled to the Patch (a long paddle), not satisfied she paddled back to the Channel and rode a couple more waves. Then she continued paddling south to where we were and then she drifted further south looking for that elusive peak. Soon she was paddling north again, past us and continuing on to the Channel and the Groin. In her search she must have traveled four miles.

Mark gave it up and went in. I was now out there by myself freezing and thinking about sharks. I paddled north to the Channel, there were no waves, I paddled to the Groin and still there were no waves. I just continued on until I reached the ramp and went in. My accomplishment for this morning was a good healthy, aerobic and long paddle.

May 26, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Channel
10:00 am to 12 noon	3' to 4', occasional 5'
Mid upcoming tide (4 ft at 12 noon)	Onshore breeze to no wind
Sunny with high clouds	Fun session

“Loren, take this one, it’s yours,” Marty yelled at me as I paddled out to the line-up. I didn’t hesitate. I turned around, stroked into a three-foot wall, dropped down the face, and briefly connected some left curl before the wave collapsed in front of me. One thing was obvious: these waves had power.

Finally some decent waves had arrived after months of lousy surf. The morning buoy report looked good: 5 ft NW swell at 12 seconds combined with a 2 ft south swell at 14 seconds with an upcoming tide (0 ft to 4 ft by noon). The weather had turned; yesterday’s rain had passed and by 7:00 am the sun was out at Mill Valley.

Remnants of last weekend’s south swell were still with us. The swell that Stormsurf had been predicting for a week came in late last Friday, peaked on Sunday (4.5 ft at 17 seconds) and was fading by Wednesday. I came out on Sunday with son Kevin and his friends. The swell was strong as predicted but so was the wind, a fierce cold NW cross wind with a minus low tide and 48-degree water. We went out at the Patch and froze. I caught one decent left wave and vowed to invest in a new wetsuit.

Today was different, the sun came out and the wind stopped. Six people were out at the Channel when I arrived. Frank the standup guy was getting out. Russ was already out and changed. Marty, Andy the other standup guy, Jeff the Dillon Beach boat mechanic and David who rides the Becker board were in the water. That’s Andy in the above photo.

“Marty, finally some waves with size and power.” I quickly paddled back out and prepared to catch another one. The waves were on the edge between makeable and close outs. My strategy was set: I would follow Barry’s example of getting into the waves early through board speed, moving up closer to the nose and frantically paddling when the momentum of the wave first picks up the board. My strategy worked and as the tide came in the waves improved and the wind died.

Marty went in and for a half-hour Jeff, David and I had the waves to ourselves. David joked about how crowded it was. I connected on four good left waves. On the first one, a four-foot wall, I turned into a fast forming curl, stepped to the middle of the board, crouched down and hummed across a fast peeling face. I hadn’t had a ride like that in months. In rapid succession, I stroked into three more like the first one. After this classic thirty minutes more surfers arrived. We soon had eight others with us at the Channel peak. Fortunately there were plenty of waves for all of us. David scored on several rights and Jeff and I picked off the lefts.

“Jeff how’s business?” We chatted between sets. “I bet it’s good. Salmon season had just opened.”

“It couldn’t be better.” Jeff’s customers are weekend warriors from San Joaquin Valley who trailer their boats to Lawson’s Landing to go fishing. Jeff helps them tune up their engines and any other mechanical problems that might come up.

After an hour and a half my arms were beginning to give out, and when I get tired, I have trouble jumping up quickly.

“David, when did you come out this morning?”

“About 7 o’clock.” He was pushing four hours in the water.

“You must be tired.”

“Yes, one more and I will go in.” He caught one more, went in, quickly changed and drove off. He’s not one linger, like I do. I wanted to ask him if he took naps in the afternoon, like I do, after long surf sessions. After this good session I took a long nap.

Earlier I ran into Professor Steve who had just finished his brief morning exercise session. He alerted me to the lead article in West Marin Citizen, which I had read yesterday. Steve had just received his first copy from his new subscription. The article was about a property next to his house on the Mesa. The absentee owner of this large parcel had a bulldozer grading the property. The owner claimed he was clearing brush for fire safety. The neighbors didn’t believe him. They thought he was preparing the land to build something big on it, and they knew he did not have a permit for construction. Steve was one of the concerned neighbors watching how this one plays out.

Also in the Citizen was an article about the West Marin “Costal Coins,” a new currency for raising money for non-profits. A couple in Dog Town came up with this idea and they commissioned Keith Hansen, the birdman of Bolinas, to design the coins. After my session I walked into town and before buying coffee I passed by Keith’s studio next to the Bolinas museum. He was in and I bought three coins from him. They cost three dollars apiece and may be used as currency at the local stores. Keith enthusiastically stated that after only five days they had sold over a thousand coins. To test them out I purchased a large bottle of Te Java at the market and handed the cashier a shinny new West Marin coin. She immediately took the coin, put it in her register next to several others and gave me change. It worked. What a great idea. It’s similar to purchasing a pre-paid card at Peet’s. I plan to buy a stack of these coins and use them for after session coffee and snacks.

It was just another interesting morning along the coast of West Marin.

May 12, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Channel
10:00 am to 11:15 am	1' to 3', no sets
Mid upcoming tide	Slight onshore breeze
Partially sunny with a high fog	Exercise session

Exercise only session, I knew that when I was suiting up. In little over an hour, I enter the water at the Ramp, paddled over to the Channel, caught a few small waves and paddled back, end of story.

This morning’s buoy readings predicted the same surf conditions as a week ago Wednesday, the last time I was in the water: small 6 ft NW swell at eight seconds, no south swell, 10 knot NW wind, 50 degree water and low tide. Even though the tide was coming up, it would still be low and I anticipated a wide flat beach with small walls for waves and I was right.

“Marty, why are you getting out so soon?” He exited the water while I was taking pictures of the conditions.

“I committed to help a friend who is recovering from an operation today at noon.” Good for him, that’s an example of doing something positive with one’s retirement time. Marty claimed he got a couple of decent rides. I helped him gather a water sample for the Surfrider water-testing program and off he went.

Why did I go out? I hadn’t been out in a week and I needed some exercise, besides surfers need to keep their arms in shape for when the waves do get good. But mainly I went out because it was a beautiful sunny morning and the water looked inviting. The weather was changing. Strong NW winds, cold air and rains were in control the past two weeks. Monday I didn’t leave the house due to rain. Today, a high pressure was finally pushing the low pressure out and we were in for a few days of sunshine and no wind. I had to go out to enjoy the return of the sun and warm air.

Marty was right, the waves were better than they looked. The upcoming tide had improved the shape of the waves. I managed to connect on one good left, one good right wave and couple of so-so lefts. Between sets Jeff the Dillon Beach boat mechanic who was also out at the Channel told me that the waves were bigger yesterday. He went out at Dillon and was out there for 45 minutes when the waves began to pick up. Soon he was duck diving under huge eight-foot crunchers that were coming in one after another. He wasn’t comfortable being out there alone in those big waves. He finally took off on a huge wall, went straight off, laid down on his board, rode the white water to shore and called it a day. He had gone out with a kayaker who quickly disappeared. Jeff had no idea where he went; he could be at the bottom of the sea for all he knew.

After my session, Dexter told me about the great waves he got yesterday at Palomarin. For over an hour he was the only one out and had these beautiful head-high barrels coming through mid-break, between the point and the rock. He had his hopes up for a repeat session this morning. He got up before daylight, hiked down the cliff in the dark (believe me, this is a goat trail), and was sitting on the beach (which is nothing but piles of small pebbles) at first light. When dawn broke the waves were tiny, a NW wind roared and white caps were everywhere. So he hiked back up the cliff, returned to Bolinas, and after the great session he had yesterday he could not bring himself to go out into the lousy Bolinas waves.

So why was I entering the water at 10 am? This morning I gathered water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program, took pictures of surf conditions and shot the breeze with friends before finally going out. The low tide makes taking water samples at the Southern Marin Sewage Agency plant at Bay Front Park in Mill Valley a challenge. The canals were nearly empty with only a trickle of water in the middle and quicksand like mud on the sides. I had to scout around for an accessible pool of water left over from the high tide and I only found one. To get my second sample (we always take two at Bay Front Park), I crawled over moss and mud covered boulders next to a water gate. I was lucky I didn’t break a leg slipping on one of those rocks. At Stinson Beach, I waded out up to my knees to take a sample. I ran into Scott, the chairman of Surfrider Marin, and we chatted about Surfrider events for ten to fifteen minutes. At Bolinas I took some photos and shot the breeze with Marty and Frank the standup guy before finally suiting up to go out. So you see how easy it was to shoot a couple of hours before getting into the water. But it was fun.

May 7, 2010 Friday

San Francisco	Fort Point
2:00 pm to 3:00 pm	6' to 8', sets way overhead
Low tide (0.9 ft at 1:30 pm)	Offshore wind
Sunny and breezy	Photo session

The surf was terrible this morning and thus by 10:30 am I was executing Plan B by having a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s in the Linda Mar Center in Pacifica. I was on my way to have lunch with old work companions in Chipotle’s in Foster City. Plan A was to surf this morning somewhere along the way before meeting with my buddies for lunch. But there was no surf. I stopped at Fort Cronkhite thinking that the new south swell might have arrived there. The swell was there but so was the wind, creating choppy, whitecap conditions. An occasional five-foot plus set would come through. Five guys were in the water including Nate, one of the Prooflab partners, who managed to score some incredible rides. Definitely shortboard conditions, not for 65-year-old longboarders, thus I decided to push on.

Pete the owner of the Livewater surf shop was in the parking lot trying to decide whether to work or to surf. Pete is also a contractor and after surveying the conditions decided to work and surf later. He told me yesterday it was big and rough here and showed me a three-inch slice in his thigh that he received from the fin of his own board. Ocean Beach was all white caps and wind swells. Nobody was out. Linda Mar was the same. A few people were in the water but the surf was horrible. That’s when I switched to Plan B and headed to Denny’s for breakfast.

After a great lunch with friends, I was heading home on the Great Highway around 2 pm. The sun was out, the wind was blowing, the waves were a churning mass of white and the tide was low. “The tide is really low, Fort Point might be breaking.” Thus instead of turning up to the bridge I continued down the hill to the Fort Point parking lot. To my surprise the waves were one to two feet overhead and ten guys were out.

Fort Point is a unique surf spot. The old historical fort sits on a small point of land under a massive arch of steel beams of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge engineers constructed the arch to preserve this 150-year-old brick building. The huge boulders that were brought in and placed around the point and the roadbed to prevent erosion form an indestructible-first class left point break. The water is deep thus the point only breaks at low tide. The lower the tide, the better the break. As the tide comes up the waves mush up against the boulders and eventually don’t break at all. The swells come through the Golden Gate, make a 90-degree turn at the point and break continuously along the contour of the roadbed. The point breaks best on big NW swells. On really big swells the waves break under the bridge near the foot of the south tower, continue into the bay and make the 90-degree turn at the point for incredibly long rides. Fort Point is a high adrenaline break: the currents in and out of the bay are always strong, the each wave peaks in a different location, the take-off zone is small thus all the surfers are crowded into a small area (localism is fierce here) and all the waves break close to the rocks.

Fort Point is also a surf photographer’s dream. The fort’s parking lot allows you to drive out to the point and stand within ten to twenty yards from the break. This afternoon the waves were sizeable and practically breaking on the roadbed. I was amazed at how close these guys were coming to the rocks. I watched one guy actually surf in front of the one large rock that sticks out in the impact zone. The ten surfers in the water had a mix of surf equipment: shortboards, longboards and two boogie boarders. I got out my camera and took some great shots. The sunlight was perfect and the strong west wind was offshore at Fort Point. I put my digital camera on the “sports” setting that fires five frames a second for action shots. In one hour, I reeled off a 120 pictures. At home I edited them down to the 47 bests ones and have posted them on the web. Click on the link below to check them out.

Fort Point May 7, 2010

May 5, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
9:30 am to 10:30 am	1.5' to 2.5'
Low dropping tide	Stiff north cross wind
Sunny and clear	Exercise session

Professor Steve drove by in his ancient, dirt crushed Volvo as I was suiting up to go out. He saw me, stopped, backed up, rolled down his window and yelled,

“Are you crazy! It’s flat out there.”

“Exercise, pure exercise. I haven’t been out in a week and a half and I’m going to get some exercise. I’m following your example. I will enter the water at the base of the ramp and paddle to the Groin and back.”

“At lease you will feel much better after the exercise,” he grinned, waved and drove off.

Conditions were not good: 7 ft NW swell at 9 seconds, 25 knot NW wind, gusts to 29 knots and 48.7 degree water temperature with a wind chill factor of 42 degrees. Everyone talked about the south swell that all the Internet sites were predicting, but we hadn’t seen it.

“Why did I go out?” I was sitting in the water freezing. “Why am I here?” It’s Wednesday, the day Marty and I collect water samples for the Surfrider Foundation water testing program that brought me to the beach. I had not been in the water for ten days, since a week ago Monday. Last Wednesday conditions were terrible and I didn’t bother going out. Friday the waves were barely breaking and a cold NW wind ripped through my sweatshirt. Again I didn’t bother going out. Monday I came here with high hopes, the big winds had stopped and the sun had returned. But the waves were non-existent, completely flat with an extreme low tide. I went for a jog at Stinson instead. So today I was determined to go out.

Besides my friends were already in the water and it was another beautiful Marin morning. Mary, Marty and David who rides the Becker board were at the Groin scratching for small two-foot walls. Frank and Andy the standup guys were barely visible. They were halfway to Stinson Beach just paddling and not going for any waves. A half-hour later they paddled back to join us at the Groin.

“Mary, why did you come out today?” I asked as she paddled by. She thought about it a second,

“Because I didn’t go out on Monday. I went for a walk at Stinson instead of going out. I wasn’t going to drive out here a second time without going out.”

After our session I queried Marty about why he had gone out. “I hoped conditions would get better. Maybe the south swell would arrive. Last week I had three good sessions before it went flat. I hoped that it would have picked up for today.”

The big winds of last week had stirred up the ocean and had brought the freezing water to the surface. This happens every spring when the NW winds of arrive. The coldest water is always in April and May. 48 to 49 degrees is cold, instant ice cream headaches every time you put your head underwater. Walking out into the cold water reminded me that it’s time to purchase a new wetsuit. The cold seeps in through every little pinhole in my suit and booties. With my third step into the surf, a stream of ice water grasped my ankle, time for new booties also. Three steps further, ice water wrapped around my right knee. I didn’t realize I had a hole in the knee. There was only one thing to do and that was to climb onto my board and stay as much as possible out of the water.

We didn’t last long with the cold water, strong winds and no waves. After an hour we exited the water, even David who always stays out longer than the rest of us.

“It’s too cold. I had to get out.”

Despite all of this we were glad we went out and were hopeful conditions would improve when the predicted south swell hits its full strength on Friday.