April 11, 2012 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
10:00 am to 11:15 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
Low upcoming tide (minus 0.5 ft)	Slight onshore wind
Sunny with high fluffy clouds	Exercise session

I had no expectation of waves this morning. When I left the house I was convinced that I wouldn't go out. All day yesterday it rained and drizzled with a stiff consistent south wind. Another front was predicted to come in today bringing more rain and south winds. The Internet predictions did not look good either - 4 ft north swell at 10 seconds and a 2.5 ft south swell at 14 seconds with 5 kts SW wind and a prediction of 20 kts south winds by this afternoon. Why did I bother to drive to the beach? I had to meet with Scott the chairman of Surfrider Marin in Stinson Beach about a couple of upcoming Surfrider events.

After meeting with Scott at the Parkside Café, I checked the waves at Stinson - super low tide with end-to-end three-foot walls. The wide flat beach looked perfect for a jog. If Bolinas was flat, like I thought it would be, I would return to Stinson for a run.

Mill Valley was under a cloud cover this morning. I drove through that cloud going over the mountain and then dropped below it on the decent to Stinson. I broke out into sunshine going around the lagoon and at Bolinas it was sunny and warm with a slight west wind. The parking area was empty - another sign that there were no waves. No David who rides the Becker board, no Marty and no Russ and Frank, the standup guys who are usually here every morning. Randy, who I had not seen in months, had just finished changing after his session. He claimed that he caught some fun waves at the outside rock at the Patch.

Mary and Kathy the biology teacher were suited up and about to head out to the Patch. They had cancelled their trip to Santa Cruz due to the weather. But with the break in the storms, they were going out. I grabbed my camera and caught up with them as they were entering the water (that's them in the above photo). DB the Safeway checker was already in the water - way outside, pass the outside rock. The tide was super low, all the Patch reef rocks were exposed and the rideable waves were south of the reef a good quarter mile from shore. What the hell, I decided to go - get some small waves and some exercise while the sun was out before the arrival of this afternoon's storm.

I made the long paddle out to join Mary and Kathy. DB had exited the water as I was paddling out. The waves were flat on the take off and I had to wait until they were breaking to catch them. On a few, I caught the white water and rode along the bottom of the waves as they reformed. The waves didn't have much punched. Several times I dropped down the faces of decent size waves only to have them die once they broke. We all caught several waves and rode them a long ways. As luck would have it, we seemed to always be paddling back out when the bigger sets came through.

After forty-five minutes Kathy went in and at the hour mark Mary exited the water. Now I was way out there by myself, the wind was picking up, the tide was pushing in and the waves became even mushier - if you can believe that. I started to drift in and after a long wait I connected on a set wave that pushed me close to shore. Time to call it a day.

All in all it was a good morning - a surprising break in the weather, the sunshine, warm air, spectacular fluffy clouds covering the mountain, friends to surf with and warm water - 52 degrees which was better than the 48 degree water of last week.