June 16, 2011 Thursday

Bolinas	Channel & Groin
8:40 am to 10:40 am	2' to 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	Offshore east breeze to no wind to stiff NW breeze
Sunny, bright and warm	Great session

Paper-thin curls, lots of them, and I locked my inside rail under the lip, crouched down mid-board and shot through perfect left peeling curls. Today was Bolinas at its best: bright sun, warm weather, offshore breeze to no wind, upcoming tide, glassy smooth, consistent beautiful little waves and only three of us on it: David who rides the Becker board, a young guy on a Dewey Weber longboard and myself.

Per Stormsurf south swell #4S (meaning the fourth major south swell of the season) was going to peak today (3.6 ft at 17 seconds) and then taper off Friday and Saturday. The weather guys forecasted today as the warmest day of the week. Despite the good predictions I was concerned about the wind. I came out here last Tuesday expecting a clean south swell and warm weather only to be greeted by on-the-deck fog, a stiff onshore wind, chop, white caps and lousy waves. This morning the San Francisco buoy read NW winds (305 degrees) at 15 knots. That was a lot of wind but the direction was right, meaning offshore at Bolinas, thus I had to check it out.

David and DB the Safeway checker were suited up as I arrived and were heading to the Patch. A few minutes later, Matt finished suiting up and went to the Patch also. From the base of the ramp I could see five more surfers at the Patch. With the minus tide and the south swell the crowd sat several yards beyond the exposed outside rock. I watched Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and Dexter the Bolinas local connect on a couple of decent waves.

So the Bolinas regulars were at the Patch, but to me the waves looked better at the Groin. From the ramp I saw several nice peeling left curls come through. I walked down to the Groin with my camera in hand and ventured out on a finger of sand that extended ten yards out into the Channel. What a photographer’s dream, that put me within a few yards of the break. I didn’t recognize the three surfers out there, but all three connected on some beautiful curls in the ten minutes that I was standing there. That was one of the better rides in the above photo. Look closely and note that this guy was riding a soft-top board. He caught one fast curl after another. The other two also locked themselves into the curls of these perfectly peeling left waves. After seeing these guys connect, my decision on where to go was settled. I chose the Channel.

By the time and suited up and entered the water, these three guys had left. Only the young longboarder on the Weber board was out there. A few minutes later, David paddled over from the Patch to join us. For nearly two hours, the three of us had the break to ourselves, we shared the waves and each of us caught countless fast, well-formed, paper-thin curls. We couldn’t believe that others did not come out and join us. On wave after wave I would jump up, cut left, climb high in the curl, step to the middle of the board, lock the inside rail under the lip, crouch down and trim down a beautiful curl until the wave finally closed out in shallow water. And as the tide came up, the waves improved. After two hours I was exhausted and went in.

Walking down the beach, I looked back to see David with his back to the wave, crouched down with the lip of the wave slapping his right shoulder. I mentally fixed the images of David’s ride and these perfect waves permanently in my mind for it was truly Bolinas at its best.

June 15, 2011 Wednesday

Pacifica	Linda Mar - South End
8:40 am to 10:30 am	4' to 5', sets overhead
Mid upcoming tide	Onshore breeze
Bright sunny morning	Good session

Yesterday morning I read an email from Marty stating that we should venture to Linda Mar on Wednesday. We have talked about doing this for months but conditions never seemed right. The Internet sights were predicting the arrival of a new south swell and they don’t get into north facing Linda Mar. Tuesday I went to Bolinas with high hopes of warm weather and clean south swell waves. What a disappointment, Bolinas was shrouded in an on-the-deck fog with a stiff onshore west wind. The surf was terrible: small, blown-out, crumbly, weak and ugly. I didn’t bother going out. Conditions for Wednesday looked the same, so I responded to Marty that it was time to give Linda Mar a try.

Things didn’t look good as we drove down the Great Highway on our way to Pacifica. Ocean Beach was totally blown out, a stiff onshore wind howled and nobody was out. They had closed the southbound lands of the Great Highway at Lincoln due to sand blowing onto the roadbed.

We managed to get one of the last spots in a jammed parking lot at Linda Mar. The ambassador of Linda Mar, Greg Cochran, greeted Marty and me when we got out of the car. Greg is a long-time local, about our age, founder of the San Pedro Point Surf Club and the Kahuna Kupuna surf contest and a great surfer. He was glad to see us and explained the reason for all the cars and the crowd of surfers at the south end of the beach. The San Pedro Surf Club just finished a memorial paddle out for one of the two San Francisco firemen that perished fighting an apartment fire last week. Greg pointed out the fire trucks and people in uniform gathered in the parking lot. Out in the water we did encountered remnants of Hawaiian leis from the ceremony.

“Gentlemen when you check out the surf walk slowly, take your time, there’s no hurry,” Greg stated.

“You’re referring to the tide. It’s too low and we should wait until it comes up, correct?”

“Yes, nine o’clock is my recommendation. It will get better then.”

To my surprise while Marty and I were chatting with Greg, my niece Heather from Ventura appeared. She teaches fifth grade, the school year had just ended, and she was visiting her cousin Erin (also my niece). Heather was here at the beach to go surfing with my son Kevin. Just then Kevin walked up with his friend Wes. What a pleasant surprise. By the way Marty was Kevin’s biology teacher in high school and Kevin claimed that his constant encouragement pushed Marty back into surfing after he retired. We all suited up and headed for the south end.

The surf had some size. The north end must have been ten-foot plus and closed out. That’s why the crowd was bunched up at the south end. I counted sixteen surfers at the one decent left peak, and thus wave selection was hampered by the actions of the other surfers. The waves were wind swells on top of ground swells and the take-offs were flat. We had to wait until the wind swell was cresting, paddle hard, jump up and push straight off to drop over the edge of the ground swell. For us old guys, the waves were ideal, the flat take-offs gave us that extra second or two to get up and position ourselves before dropping down the faces.

I saw Heather get a good one. I have surfed with her several times at Surfer’s Point in Ventura and know that she is good. Looking back I saw her head streaking along in front of the breaking curl as she cruised a long ways before straightening out. Heather usually rides a 9’ 6” board, but this morning she was on Kevin’s eight-foot Becker, a Mike Gee longboard model. She told me that it was a lot smaller and thinner than what she was used to. But from the number of waves she caught, it didn’t slow her down.

Marty had a great session. The crowd didn’t phrase him; he paddled for everything and caught several of them. He told me that he connected on three great waves where he cruised down the faces, cut back, let the waves build up again, shot through the inside sections and snapped up over the tops as the waves broke. I too managed to connect on a couple of good ones. On one I was able to push into a steep shore break, scream across a fast breaking curl and then buried the nose in the white water of the breaking wave.

All morning there was a mass of brown foam floating on the surface. At first it was outside beyond the breakers. An hour later we were sitting in the middle of it and thirty minutes later it was washing onto shore. Biologist Marty thought it was caused by wave turbulence and seaweed out by the point, high protein water being stirred up. All I could think of was the number of times I had read about the sewage problems at Pacifica. Health officials often close Linda Mar after heavy run-off storms. So far as I write this, there were no signs of skin rashes, runny nose or burning eyes. Lets hope Marty was right.

I took the above photo from the deck of the Taco Bell that sits on the beach. Marty and I gave considerable thought to where to have lunch. Pacifica offers some good choices. Denny’s was across the street with all-day giant and reasonable breakfasts, and a mile north was Gorilla Barbeque. Once Guy Fieri on his Dinners, Drive-ins and Dives show featured Gorilla Barbeque, and since that show aired, the place has been jammed. Because it was such a beautiful, summer like day, we opted for Taco Bell where we could sit outside in the sun and watch the surf. The beach scene from the deck was entertaining: great surfers out front, a surf school to the south and a summer camp for little kids to the north.

We congratulated ourselves for making the good decision to come here. It was a beautiful morning.

June 10, 2011 Friday

Bolinas	Channel & Groin
9:30 am to 10:50 am	2' to 3', occasional 4'
Mid dropping tide	Onshore west wind
Sunny with high clouds and fog on the horizon	Frustrating - exercise session

The weather guys had forecasted that Thursday (yesterday) would be the warmest day of the week and Stormsurf had predicted that the good south swell that I rode Wednesday would peak on Thursday. Thus with the warmest day and the peak of the swell, Thursday was the day to go surfing. My son Kevin and I agreed to meet early at Kelly Cove, the north end of Ocean Beach. Based on conditions we would decide to surf there or push on south to Linda Mar. Ocean Beach is not my favorite spot, in fact I hate it. But with the right conditions it can get good for longboards. Well the weather didn’t cooperate, our June gloom of overcast, fog, wind, chop and white caps had returned. Kevin and I made a quick executive decision to have breakfast at Java Beach (located at the end of Judah Street) and not waste our time chasing waves at Linda Mar, Montara, Kelly Avenue or points further south. Kevin had to go to work and didn’t have much time. What a good decision. Kevin had just attended a three-day conference on Computer Architecture, a conference he attends every year. Thus he gave me an interesting update on the current trends in computer design.

This morning I had high hopes of catching the end of the south swell. What a disappointment. The swell was gone and the west wind and NW wind swells had returned. Since the weather was warm and sunny, I decided to go out anyway. When I arrived at Bolinas and before I could suit up, all my friends had exited the water and were leaving. Jeff the contractor was toweling off. He had surfed the Channel and said it was ok, earlier. Doug and Jim the jazz guitarist were loading up Doug’s truck to leave. They went out at Seadrift, two houses in, and caught some good ones, earlier. Creighton had just put his board into the back of his truck and reported that Seadrift had some decent waves, earlier. When I returned from taking some photos Mary was putting away her board to go home. She had surfed the Patch and said it was better earlier and that now the waves had died.

Five surfers, who I did not recognize, were out at the Groin and the Channel when I walked down there to take some pictures. The waves looked like they had some potential. A few small fast, peeling lefts came through when I arrived at the Groin wall. One young longboarder was extremely good. He would run to the nose on every wave. Perfectly flat, mushy little crumblers and he would be hanging five as the wave broke in one foot of water. That’s him in the above photo.

I had a frustrating one-hour and twenty-minute session. The waves were difficult to catch and by the time I stood up they had collapsed in front of me. With the tide going out, I had to paddle against the current pouring out of the lagoon. It was like running on a thread mill. I would paddle hard and remain stationary. I didn’t move forward until the wave would pick me up. It was almost impossible to drop into them. My best ride I took lying down; I didn’t want to waste any time trying to stand up. I caught the wave, remained laying down, cut left, shifted my weight forward, ducked under the lip of the curl and flew out onto the shoulder. There I jumped to my knees and cruised until the wave closed out. I tried lying down on a larger wave and got clobbered. I cut left and leaned into the curl to gain speed. The wave jumped up, my inside rail dug into the curl, I hung on tight to my board and was sucked up the face and dumped into a ton of churning white water. I was lucky that my board didn’t hit me.

Just for exercise I paddled from the Groin to the ramp and called it a day. Despite the small waves and frustrating rides, it was worth it. What a beautiful morning: bright sunshine, warm air and water, seals swimming into the lagoon, pelicans diving for fish beyond the breakers and me with the satisfaction of another vigorous workout.

June 8, 2011 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:50 am to 11:20 am	3' to 4', sets to 6'
Low dropping tide	Onshore breeze
High overcast	Fun session

I had no excuse this morning, we weren’t collecting water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program because the program was shut down for the summer, but still I didn’t get into the water until 9:50 am. I’m always amazed how long it takes me to make it out to the line-up. Yesterday I waited for Kate to finish a morning phone call before we headed to Pete’s in Mill Valley, which is our normal routine. Even with that delay I was in the water at 8:45. This morning we made it to Pete’s at the usual hour. I hung out with local friends John and Matt and after we settled the Giants line-up strategy I headed to the beach at eight and arrived at Bolinas at eight-thirty. Great I should be in the water at nine. No way, I had to shoot the breeze with Jacek the tattoo artist, Dan, Mary and Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and take some photos for the Journal.

Twice I had locked up the car and had to return. First Mary exited the water and I went back to my car to retrieve the surf DVD that I borrowed from her a couple of weeks ago. Next Jacek handed me the lens cap to the 400 mm lens that he loaned to me. Now that I’m a senior citizen, I have to take care of the little things right away or I will forget them. So I immediately returned to my car to safely tuck the lens cap into my camera bag.

“I hope you have a good story for that one.” Dan had to tell me how he broke his nose yesterday at Cronkhite.

“No I don’t. I kooked the wave. I had just completed a good wave and then went for a wave I never should had gone for. The wave dumped me, threw me down underwater and my board hit me on the nose. Now I know why you should always put your hands in front of your face under water. I had this longboard because my 6’ 11” Cronkhite board is in San Diego, but I will get it back this weekend.”

“Dan what are you doing going to Cronkhite? You’re too old for those hard pounding waves. You should be out here with the rest of the old guys.” He agreed.

When I returned the DVD to Mary, Jaime grabbed it. He wanted to see it. We started chatting about music. I have been telling him for months about my extensive collection of surf music. I keep hounding him to dedicate one of his weekly radio shows to surf music. Every Tuesday night from 8:30 to 10:30 pm, Jaime broadcasts two hours of rock, blues and jazz on the West Marin radio station KWMR. (I highly recommend his show, check it out). Jaime has collected music since he was a kid, owned a music store and has traveled the country playing lead guitar for various blues bands, thus he knows his stuff.

“Doug how about those Giants?” Doug is such a huge Giants fan he travels to Arizona every March to watch a few spring training games.

“Loren, I don’t know why I bother going. I was there last night and they lost again. Every time I go to a game, they tank.” I don’t go to many Giants games but I did go a couple of weeks ago to see them lose to the Florida Marlins one to nothing. While exiting the stadium I ran into Doug.

“Sanchez was terrible last night. He pitched five innings and walked ten batters. He stunk.” The Giants lost two to one to the Nationals.

After taking photos, shooting the breeze and suiting up, it was nine-fifty when I headed out to the Patch. Remnants of the south swell were still there and the swell picked up while I was in the water. My arms were tired from yesterday’s session. I was feeling it by the time I reached the line-up, some twenty yards beyond the outside rock, and I had to keep paddling through the impact zone to get back out. The impact zone was a mile wide today and there was no way of paddling around it. Despite that, using the outside rock as my marker I managed to connect on a few long lefts.

Marty caught a good one when I first paddled out. He dropped down a head-high wall, went under white water sliding down from the top of the wave, climbed back into the swell, passed within ten feet of the outside rock and cruised on and on until the wave died on the inside. Matt caught a good one. He stroked into a set wave as I was paddling back out north of him. He cut right down a head-high wall. When the wave slowed down he cut back left and crouched down. I thought he was going to swing right again. No, he kept coming left and the wave built up in front of him. He soon passed by the rock and behind me. The next time I saw him he was starting the long paddle back out, way on inside and a good two hundred yards to the north. Wine Country Pete caught a good one on his ten-foot bright yellow longboard. We were sitting together on the outside when a sizeable wave came through. Pete stroked into as it was breaking while I paddled over it. I looked back and saw only his head streaking along in front of the breaking curl. The next time I saw him he was making the long paddle back way on the inside and north of the take off point.

After an hour and a half I was spent and worked my way in. Again I had achieved that glow of satisfaction from vigorous exercise, fun waves and good friends.

June 7, 2011 Tuesday

Bolinas	Channel, Groin & Patch
8:45 am to 10:45 am	3' to 4', sets to 6'
Low dropping tide	Offshore breeze to NW cross breeze
Bright sunny morning	Fun exercise session

I sure got my exercise this morning. In the two hours that I was in the water, I started at the Groin, paddled to the Channel, then back to the Groin, from the Groin to the Middle Peak just north of the ramp to Robinson’s Peak on the south edge of the Patch Reef, to the outside peak a hundred yards beyond the outside rock to the shore to finally come in. With all of this paddling I caught less than ten waves, but it was worth it. I burned thousands of calories and for the rest of the day I had that satisfying glow from vigorous exercise.

When I arrived this morning I put the 400 mm lens that Jacek had loaned me on my camera and headed to the Groin. The waves were clean and peeling left, maybe peeling a little too fast. Three surfers were out there: Josh the Bolinas fisherman, David who rides the Becker board and Kathy the biology teacher. It was a long wait between sets but all three caught decent fast curl rides. On the first set I saw a surfer jump to his knees and duck his head under the lip of a fast breaking curl. Then I knew it was Josh, the one who has perfected riding on his knees. That’s him in the above photo.

I started at the Groin joining David and another Bolinas local. The small left peeling waves were clean and the surface was smooth. The long predicted south swell was in (2 ft at 12 seconds). Every ten to fifteen minutes a set of four or five long lines that stretched from the Channel to the Groin would come through. With luck we could pick off one with an edge that allowed us to drop into a long left curl. But most of the time, the waves would jump up and dump over when they hit the shallow water of the sandbar. The Bolinas local went in and I paddled over to the Channel hoping to connect on some good left shoulders. David remained at the Groin. Jacek paddled out to the Channel on his eleven-foot paddling machine. He caught a couple of close out set waves and then announced he was going to the Patch and off he paddled.

After getting clobbered on a three-foot wall that sucked out in two feet of water, I moved back to the Groin to rejoin David. With another hour to go before the tide turned, we concluded that the Patch looked better. David started paddling for the Patch while I patiently waited for another set wave. The set never came and I too started paddling north towards the Patch.

David had mentioned that waves were breaking at the Middle Peak, just north of the ramp. I was not anxious to make the half-mile paddle to the Patch, thus just moving over to the Middle Peak sounded like that plan to me. I saw David, who was a hundred yards ahead of me, connected on a four-foot Middle Peak wall. Great I would try for that. But the Middle Peak was deceptive. The waves crested way outside but did not break; they just kept coming and building. I tried for several and missed them all. Finally I caught one, a sizeable four-foot wall. I jumped up and pushed my weight forward to stay in the wave. It continued to build and I kept pushing forward. I finally pushed over the edge and dropped down a curl that was sucking out in two feet of water. The wave bounced me when it broke, I bailed out to the side and my hands hit the bottom. I was lucky I didn’t land on my own board. So I gave up on riding the Middle Peak.

By this time David had joined Jacek at the furthest peak at the Patch. I kept resisting making the long paddle out there, so I worked my way north along the shore thinking I would connect on some good right waves at Robinson’s Reef, just south of the exposed rocks of the Patch Reef. Again I had no luck. Every time I stroked into a Robinson’s Reef wave, it would collapse into a solid curtain of white water on the shore.

I concede that I had to move further out. Next I tried catching waves at the outside rock. It was totally exposed and waves peaked on both sides of it. Again I tried for several and missed them all. I watched David connect on a sizeable wave way outside. It was over his head when he first dropped down the face. He cut back left, then swung around right turning into a now head-high line-up and glided down a beautiful swell for another two hundred yards.

That was what I wanted, thus I had to venture out to the furthest peak. I joined David and Jacek, and now I had completed the long paddle that I had been resisting. I was more than a hundred yards beyond the outside rock and my arms felt like lead pipes.

The sets were infrequent, ten minutes or more between them. Jacek sat cross-legged on his board another thirty yards further out from David and I and patiently waited for the next big one. When it came he was on it. A set wave came and Jacek calmly turned to go for it. I started paddling out thinking I would go for it also. The wave was definitely left and Jacek was at the peak; it was his wave. He waited and waited and at the last second he stroked hard four or five times and jumped up. He crouched down three-quarters the way up on his board to push himself into the wave. I paddled over it and looked back. Jacek faded left, then quickly turned right and dropped down the face. He disappeared, then reappeared again high in the curl and then dropped down again. From then on he cruised all the way to the inside portion of the reef.

How does he do it? He has the perfect board for the Patch, a real paddling machine: an eleven-foot long, narrow, pintail, no rocker dart.

I finally caught a good one. David and I paddled for the same wave, I went left and he went right. I jumped up to my knees and dropped down a steep face. The wave was fast, and the surface was textured causing that rapid-fire slap-slap sound as I screamed along. I jumped to my feet, cut back and turned left again. I milked that wave as far as I could and ended up way inside and north of the Patch reef. It was time for me to call it a day. From there I had a long paddle to reach the sandy shore south of the Patch reef.

“Great I will make it to work on time. I thought I was late,” Jacek said back at his car after his session. “The Patch was ideal this morning. Beautiful day, warm water and nice clean waves.” Jacek is a tattoo artist at Mama’s Shop in the Haight in San Francisco and the shop opens at noon. Drawing tattoos require intense concentration.

“Jacek, tell me. Do you work better after surfing?”

“Oh yes, definitely. I’m calm and relaxed all day.”

That was just the answer that I expected. I too feel the same way, as do most surfers after a morning session.

June 2, 2011 Thursday

Bolinas	Channel
9:50 am to 11:50 am	Consistent 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	Onshore breeze
Overcast with light rain	Good session

“Hey Loren, check this out.” It was Dexter showing me his latest wound. He held his hand up to my face so that I could get a good view of the ten Frankenstein size stitches at the base of his thumb.

“How did that happen?”

“I got hit by a set of fins. Some kid took off right in front of me when he should of never had taken off.” Dexter was paddling out when the kid caught a head high wave five feet in front of him. Dexter bailed off his board and put his hands in front of his face for protection. The board’s three fins hit Dexter in his hands, slicing his thumb and putting a major bruise on his arm. His thick 5 – 4 wetsuit saved him from having his arm slashed open also.

“Where did this happen?”

“The Hook.” The break at the end of 41st Avenue in Santa Cruz is known as The Hook. It is the next point south of Pleasure Point and is also a popular (that means crowded) surf location. Dexter had been spending a lot of time in Santa Cruz, so much so that the locals had adopted him as one of their own. Of course the doctor told Dexter to stay out of the water, but a few stitches were not going to keep him from surfing.

“Look, I put a surgical glove over the stitches, wrap it with duct tape and wear a surf glove over it. That keeps it dry.”

“Of course you’re not worried about the seal shit, the otter piss and the raw sewage that’s in the water at Santa Cruz.”

“That’s right. I don’t worry about it.”

I was suiting up while chatting with Dexter. I hadn’t surfed in ten days and was anxious to get out there. Stormsurf’s swell #2S (meaning second major south swell of the season) arrived Tuesday, peaked on Wednesday and was going to hold through the weekend. Monday was Memorial Day, a holiday, so I stayed home. On Tuesday the rain and wind hit the coast, and I knew it was going to be terrible, but being the eternal optimist I loaded up the car and drove to Bolinas. I was right, it was terrible, and no one was there. I purchased a coffee and drove home. Wednesday I was hopeful. The south swell was going to peak and besides I had to collect water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program. Coming down the Panoramic Highway I passed four cars with boards on the roof going the other way. Not a good sign. Creighton went by, I recognized his green truck. He often surfs early before going to work. Maybe he went out this morning. Then Jacek the tattoo artist drove by. He takes surfing serious and if conditions aren’t just right he will sit in his car and wait for conditions to improve (tide, wind, swell or whatever). Or he takes off for other beaches searching for better waves. With him driving in the wrong direction that meant Bolinas was not up to his standards. Then David who rides the Becker board drove by; that did it, Bolinas must be terrible. The surf fanatic, who goes out for four hours regardless of conditions, was driving home at 8:15.

At Stinson Beach the rain started. By the time I put on my booties and waded out into the water to collect a water sample the rain turned into a downpour. The surface was peppered with sheets of raindrops. At Bolinas, Marty had already taken a water sample, and we walked into town for a coffee and then headed home.

This morning the Internet data looked promising: 3.6 ft south swell at 17 seconds and a NW wind at 5 knots. I had to go. Four surfers were at the Channel including David, Paul and two others. The low tide made for small fast peeling left waves, maybe a little too fast. I didn’t see any decent rides from the crew in the water. At the Patch, four standup guys and one prone surfer sat way beyond the exposed outside rock. The waves were bumpy, confused and all over the place. The prone surfer was Jacek and I waited patiently to get a picture of him. He caught three waves, all of them small, mushy and slow. It didn’t look inviting.

Then the rain came. I tucked my camera under my sweatshirt and headed back to the car. I decided to wait to see if the rain would let up. The tide was coming up thus the waves should improve (eternal optimist again). I read two New York Times articles on my iPhone while listening to the rain pelt the windshield. After twenty minutes it let up. I walked through a light sprinkle to the overlook above the Groin. Six surfers were now at the Channel and the waves had improved. Jacek, who had paddled from the Patch to the Channel, stroked into a four-foot wall, cleanly cut left and cruised down a long well formed curl; that did it, I was going.

The waves were peeling left with speed and power. With good wave selection I managed to connect of five fast long rides. The waves were consistent and the sets were frequent. I was constantly moving: catching waves, paddling back out, turning around and doing it again. Jacek also connected on several long fast waves. Jeff the Dillon Beach boat mechanic joined us. I had not seen him in a long while. He told me that as usual his business was up and down. The cold weather did not help him. I watched him connect on a good four-foot left. He stroked into it late, coasted over the edge, jumped up to a crouch, grabbed the outside rail and dropped down a fast steep curl. On he went, calmly cruising left with his back to the wave until it closed out on the inside.

Two younger surfers who I had never seen before paddled out to the far Channel peak. I could tell by how they glided through the water that they knew what they were doing. Both had no gloves, booties or leashes. One rode a vintage Yater glassed on single fin board. The other had a modern Dewey Weber longboard. These two dominated the peak. They could see the sets coming, quickly paddle to the peak, swing around, and stroke with great speed into every wave that they tried for. I had to maneuver around them and wait until they took off before I could catch a wave. But despite this I caught plenty of waves.

After two hours I was exhausted, invigorated, cold, hungry and glad I went out.