July 18, 2011 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
9:15 am to 11:15 am	Consistent 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	Slight onshore breeze to no wind
Sunny with high clouds, fog bank on the horizon	Good session

I had no expectations for waves this morning. Stormsurf had predicted that it would be flat all week, and the buoy forecast for San Francisco had ocean swells pegged at three feet for the next five days. This morning's reading was 4 ft at 9 seconds. Only positive was that the 4 ft was a combination of a 2 ft NW swell at 6 seconds and a 2 ft south swell at 14 seconds.

I seriously contemplated going to Linda Mar because the SW breeze would be offshore there. Instead I opted to go to Bolinas to hang out with my friends and if there were no waves I would go for a jog on the beach at Stinson. I put an extra pair of socks and a T-shirt in my bag for jogging. But what a pleasant surprise when I arrived at Bolinas, the waves were decent. Cazadero Cathy, who was suiting up, claimed the waves looked good and that David who rides the Becker board, Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and Frank the stand-up guy were at the Patch. From the base of the ramp I saw them out there. But at the Channel I watched a perfect four-foot wave peel left and no one was out there. One surfer was at the Groin going for the fun shore-break waves.

I walked down to the Groin to take some pictures. As soon as I saw those clean, glassy peaks at the Channel, I knew where I was going. The one surfer at the Groin was Paul and he was having a grand time. Three-foot walls would come through, and Paul would stroke into them late, jump up, cut left, crouch down, grab the outside rail and hang on until the waves broke over him. In the few minutes I was there, I saw him catch at least five such waves. That's him in the above photo locked into a clean small curl. When I paddled out I asked him if he had tried the Channel. He said no because he wanted to work on riding small fast curls. I caught one of those shore-break waves and for a brief second I was locked the curl before the wave closed out in front of me. After that I headed out to the Channel.

Being the only surfer out there I didn't have any reference point on where to line up. I started in the middle of the Channel and worked my way back towards the Groin. The waves were beautiful: fast, clean, left peeling curls, but they were difficult to catch. The flat swells would jump up when they hit the shallow sandbar fold over and collapse. I had a frustrating first hour, by the time I coasted into a wave and stood up the wave had already broken several yards in front of me and the ride was over. Conditions changed in my second hour, the tide came up, increased the water depth and waves began to hold up and became easier to catch. The set waves were more forgiving, meaning they had shape, were flatter on the take-off and allowed for an extra second to jump up and position oneself on the wave, the larger the waves, the better the shape.

I caught one wave that made my whole session. I was sitting outside when a big set came through. I let the first two go by while the others in the water went for them. The third and largest wave was right in front of me. I paddled hard, caught it, jumped up, cut left and hung at the top of the curl. The curl stood up, I turned more into the wave and was nearly parallel to it. Some young surfer started to take off in front of me, I intimidated him by barreling down the line right at him, fortunately he quickly pulled back and I shot by barely missing him. Now I was firmly locked in the curl, standing three-quarters the way up on my board, and I stood there frozen for several yards. Some short-boarder tried to drop in on me; I didn't move, the nose of my board went under his as he hung at the top of the wave. He panicked and backed off and I went on. On and on I cruised until the wave died a few feet from the Groin wall. This ride made my day.

The crowd filled in as the waves improved. At first as was by myself, then another longboarder joined me and he also had difficulty catching the waves. A few minutes later a second longboarder on a classic old board with no booties or leash joined us. This guy knew what he was doing and soon caught several long rides. Next the two guys I nearly ran over on my best wave came out, and David and Rob paddled over from the Patch. Per David, they had used up all the waves at the Patch and decided to move to the Channel. As usual David connected on several set waves. Paddling out I watch Rob come down a well-formed wall. Later, Shu-Shu joined us. I had not seen her in months. She too managed to connect on several good ones.

After two hours my arms were giving out, crowd had picked up, summer surf camp started and soon twenty campers on soft-top boards were going for the small inside waves and having a ball. It was time to go in, besides I wanted to save some of my strength for another day this week. I chatted with Shu-Shu as I walked back to the ramp. With eight-year-old twins who were on summer break, she didn't have much time to surf and was thankful for her good session this morning.

I looked back at the Channel, a perfect peak was peeling in both directions, twenty-five surfers were in the water, the wind had dropped, the surface had glassed off, the sky was blue, a few wisps of fog drifted over hills behind Stinson and a fog bank sat on the horizon preparing to march back in. I thought to myself, "This is it, Bolinas at its best."