January 30, 2012 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:00 am to 10:30 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
Mid dropping tide	No wind
Patchy sun to high overcast	Exercise session

"Did I hear that right?" I turned up the volume on my radio to clearly hear this morning's buoy observations. "Yes I heard it correctly - 4 ft at NINETEEN seconds. A small swell with a lot of energy in it, the waves could be good."

This swell translated into two to three foot waves with sets at four feet. Nobody was out at the Channel when I arrived due to the river of water flowing out of the lagoon that was knocking down the waves. Seven surfers were out at the Patch - Mary, Hans, DB the Safeway checker, Larry (brother of Russ) and stand-up guys Frank, Russ and Walt the photographer. The waves were good - small, clean, long lines that continuously broke to the right. In the ten minutes I was there, all of them caught waves and I got photos of all of them except Larry. Mary caught the most waves, as she often does, on her big paddling machine with the tangerine-colored nose. She skillfully locked into these right curls that kept going and going. DB connected on a couple of good inside curls - that's her on one of them in the above photo. Hans also dropped into a nice wave, crouched down mid-board and hummed through a glassy section. Russ stroked into two long rides and Frank turned into a small inside curl.

I got excited watching them. "Knee high curls, my kind of waves. Get out there Loren and catch some with your friends."

But it didn't happen. They all came in before I got into the water. First was Walt, followed by Larry, who claimed that he had to go to work. Then DB came in, quickly changed and sped off to her Safeway job. Next Russ and Frank exited the water, which was their usual time for getting out of the water.

When I walked down the ramp to the beach, only Mary was still in the water. She was standing in waist depth water next to her board. It looked like she was coming in, but she remained standing there. I thought that she was taking some pictures. When I got closer, I saw that she was pointing a small waterproof camera at the waves and the horizon.

"The light is perfect. I had to get a picture of it." Mary, who is an excellent artist, paints large canvases of the ocean's surface, thus she is constantly observing the impact of the sun's light on the water. Just as I had guessed, her session was over and she was going in.

Now I was by myself. For an hour I flounder around alone. All the good waves had disappeared. The rapid out-going tide made for shallow water and exposed rocks. I lined up about fifteen yards south of the outside rock. On my first wave, I jumped up, cut right and immediately had to weave my way around several small boulders that were peeking above the surface. I gingerly backed out of the wave and slowly put my feet on the rocky ocean floor. That was how it went this morning. It was really too shallow to surf, but I kept trying. I moved south over the sand but couldn't catch anything because the waves broke over the rocks. I then moved further in and remained over the sand and waited for the set waves. This didn't work either; by the time I caught the wave it was a shore break suck-out wall that collapsed on the beach.

I was standing in knee-high water, ten feet from dry sand and thought about kissing it off for this morning when I saw a set of three waves come through that broke beyond the outside rock. "Let's give that a try." I made the long paddle out to the rock, then headed north to a peak about thirty yards further out. A four-foot wave came through and I connected. The initial section had some force and speed. I cut back to stay in the wave that kept slowly breaking to the right. I felt like I was riding a mid-ocean swell, one that keeps rolling on without changing size or speed. After a long ride, the wave turned into a shore break wall and I managed to pick up some speed in the curl up to the point where the breaking part of the wave was coming at me. I cut sharply left and rode it for couple more seconds going left before it closed out. I ended up over sand, in two feet of water and a few feet from shore.

"Don't press it Loren," I said to myself. "Time to call it a day."

I quickly changed, walked into town for a coffee. Now surfers are always positive and never admit they had a bad session. With a hot coffee in my hand and warming myself in front of the ancient gas heater in the Coast Café, so I too felt I didn't waste my time - I got some good exercise on a beautiful Marin morning.