February 27, 2012 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
9:40 am to 10:40 am	1' to 2', sets to 3'
Low upcoming tide	No wind to NW cross breeze
Sunny, clear and cold	Exercise session

Today we froze!

A new blast of cold air came in last night and sent temperatures dropping all over Marin. I had to scrape ice off my windshield before heading for the beach. Frost covered all the houses and grass along Brighton Ave in Bolinas. I was ready to use the cold as my excuse for not going out. By the cars parked along the tennis courts, I could tell that David who rides the Becker board, Marty, DB the Safeway checker, Ray the Petaluma fireman and stand-up surfers Frank, Russ and his brother Larry were in the water - thus there must be some waves. But the San Francisco buoy stats were mediocre - 8 ft swell at 11 seconds, a north wind at 21 knots and 48 degrees water temperature, that's cold.

As I walked to the ramp with my camera in hand and wearing two hooded sweatshirts, Larry came up the ramp from his session.

"How was it?" I asked.

"It's cold."

"Russ how was it?" I asked as he came up the ramp.

"It's freezing."

"DB how was it?" I asked her as she walked along the beach.

"My hands are frozen. I can barely move them. But it is getting better, the sun finally came out."

At the Groin, I watched David, Marty and Ray struggle to catch infrequent two to three footers that were beautiful little fast peeling lefts - note the waves in the above photo. But they broke too fast. By the time they caught a wave and stood up, the ride was over because the wave had already broken twenty feet down the line. Since I hadn't surfed in twelve days and needed the exercise and since tide was coming up and the sun was out warming up the air, I decided to join them.

Out in the water everyone bitched about the cold. For the first time I saw David wearing a hood, no gloves - just a hood for added protection. Jason, a young shortboarder, was out there with no gloves and no booties.

"Jason, your toes must be cold."

"They're numb. I lost all feeling in them long ago." Boy if that happened to me, I wouldn't be able to stand. But Jason continued to skillfully catch wave after wave.

David had the waves wired. He knew where to line-up and caught everything he paddled for. The rides were short but David was in constant motion - catch a wave, paddle back out, turn around and do it again. Maybe that's why he could stay in this freezing water for three hours. Jason moved way inside and north to catch the edge of these small walls. I watched him successfully get locked into several nicely shaped curls. The trick was to get into the waves quickly, stay at the top, position in the curl and shoot down the line. But for us old guys, by the time we stood up, we were at the bottom of the wave and the ride was over. My technique was to remain prone, turn sharply into the wave and cruise through the first section, jump to my knees and then jump to my feet. The idea was not to lose any precious seconds standing up. Nice try Lorenzo, but it only worked once. Most of the time the waves would close out in front of me while I was still lying down. On one wave I got barreled lying down, for a brief second - I turned sharply into a two-foot curl, locked the rail under the lip of the wave, watched a sheet of water curl over my head and then the wave buried me.

After an hour, my hands and toes were feeling the cold - time to go in. I moved inside and connected on a good one. I stroked into a three-footer, stayed prone, turned into the wave, stayed high in the curl, jumped to my knees, shot through the first section, jumped to my feet, cruised through a second fast section and cut back as the wave broke in shallow water. Nice ending to an exercise session.

To get warm, Marty and I went into the Coast Café, purchased a couple of coffees and then sat in front of their classic pot-belly gas heater. A half hour of good coffee, good discussion and a good heater toped off the morning.