January 25, 2012 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
11:00 am to 12:30 pm	3' to 4', sets to 5'
Mid upcoming tide	Slight onshore breeze
High fog to sunshine	Fun session

"Get thee to the Patch!" Mary called to me after stopping her car and rolling down the window. She said that the waves were good, she had a great session and there were only a couple of surfers out there. I had expectations for some waves. The Internet site Wetsands had predicted waist to overhead waves, maybe a couple of feet overhead with WNW 8 to 9 ft swells at 11 to 13 seconds with light winds.

I oscillated between the Channel and the Patch. The waves were bigger and thicker at the Channel with twelve surfers bunched around one peak. I watched a skilled stand-up of surfer connect on a couple of long rides. He could coast into waves while they were still flat and maneuver into position to drop down the faces ahead of the hard breaking curls. That's him in the above picture. The others had trouble catching the waves, and when they did, the waves quickly closed out in front of them. I followed Mary's advice and chose the mellow waves and the smaller crowd at the Patch.

Four surfers were sitting together at the Patch as I walked down the beach with my board. While I strapped on my leash I watched one surfer ride a wave from the far peak all the way into the shore and exit the water. While paddling out, I saw LiAnne the Bolinas local come down a four-foot face, turn right and milk the wave all the way in. She waved to me and paddled to shore. Now only two were at the peak when I reached the line-up. One was my Kahuna Kupuna surf contest buddy Don from Berkeley and I didn't know the other guy, who was obviously just learning and drifted away from us.

So for an hour and a half, Don and I had the break to ourselves. We traded wave after wave. Don took the rights and I took the lefts. The waves were mellow, long and clean. Don is from the "old school" - he was out there with no booties or leash just cruising over shallow water skillfully getting the most out of every wave. I managed to connect on several decent left curls that kept going on and on.

It doesn't get much better than this and Mary was right - "Get thee to the Patch."