July 14, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 10:50 am	Consistent 3', sets to 4'
Low upcoming tide	NW cross breeze to no wind
Sunny with high patchy fog	Great session

What are your ideal surf conditions? For an older surfer like myself here are mine: sunny skies, warm weather, warm water, a slight offshore breeze or no wind, glassy smooth surface, three to four-foot consistent fast peeling left waves and nobody else in the water. For one hour this morning that was exactly what I had.

I had no expectations for waves this morning; conditions didn’t look great: 6 ft NW swell at ten seconds, 2 ft south swell at 14 seconds, 4 knot south wind and water temperature at 57 degrees. At lease the water had warmed up, but the south wind was discouraging. Strong south winds had messed up the big south swell over the Fourth of July weekend. Driving over the mountain I was mentally prepared to go for a jog on the beach at Stinson if the waves were lousy.

A minus low tide had just turned at 8:00 am. Six surfers were at the Patch, including Russ, Mary and David who rides the Becker board, scratching for some weak two-foot waves. It didn’t look inviting. No one was at the Groin or the Channel. The finger of sand, that had developed a couple of weeks ago, stretched ten yards out into the break marking the north edge of the ebb tide flowing out of the lagoon. At the apex of the Channel small left peeling waves broke in six inches of water. Standing on the seawall feeling discouraged, I noticed a nice rideable left wave half way between the Groin and the Channel, at the exact spot that I was at last Thursday when I connected with several fun waves. Another wave came through, and another and another. My interested picked up, there was hope for some waves, and besides it was a warm morning and I was anxious for some exercise, thus I would go.

“Loren, what’s it like in the lens?” Hans greeted me as I walked up the ramp with my camera hung around my neck. Hans was suited up with board in hand walking towards the beach. He had not bothered to check the surf first; he was just going.

“Pretty crappy!” I replied. He laughed and continued on.

I entered the water just south of the Groin wall and paddled out to the peak I had observed from the seawall. I was pleasantly surprised. Within two minutes a set of three waves came through. I stroked into the second one, turned left into a well-formed wall, drove down the line a long ways before diving into the wave as it broke on shore. Good ride. I looked around and was only fifteen feet from the Groin pole. I paddled back out, waited two minutes, another set came in, and again I connected on another good wave. I paddled out again and within two minutes I did it again, and again and again. On the bigger four-foot waves, I would charged down the line for several yards before the white water would collapse in front of me. On others I was able to drive under the white water back into the swell for another fast section. On two four-foot walls I screamed down the faces the whole way ahead of the breaking curls.

After an hour a young surfer on a balsa laminated longboard joined me. There were plenty of waves for both of us. A few minutes later, Rick a standup surfer paddled over from Seadrift. Rick was at this peak last Thursday with two other standup surfers, Annette and her partner. We chatted and Rick would alert me to approaching sets. The three of us shared the numerous waves that came through. Nearing the two-hour mark I was tiring, the wind had picked up, the waves were becoming mushy due to the raising tide and the surf school hordes were arriving.

Time to call it a day. I moved closer to shore. A good set wave came through. I stroked into it, turned down a four-foot face, stepped to the middle of the board, crouched down, leaned into the wave and shot down a fast curl. The wave kept forming in front of me and I kept going. I could see that I was heading right for the Groin pole. The wave kept standing up and I kept going. I had to do something or I was going to hit the pole. The wave began to suck out in shallow water. I dropped to the bottom, turned sharply into the wave and flew up over the top of a collapsing curl landing in one foot of water. I was now standing in front of the pole. A young guy standing on the Groin wall hooted and gave me a “nice-ride” raised fist salute.

With that I decided to end it on a high note. What a great session.