April 2, 2012 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:40 am to 11:10 am	3' to 4', sets to 5'
High dropping tide	Slight NW cross wind
Sunshine with high wispy cloud cover	Fun session

NOAA weather radio issued a "high surf advisory", 14 ft N swell at 14 seconds. Stormsurf's Quikcast had "fading raw west swell", 10 ft at 14 seconds. San Francisco buoy had 11.5 ft at 14 seconds with a 4 kts N wind.

Parking area on Brighton Ave was full. I had to circle the block and park behind David who rides the Becker board. Jacek was also circling the block looking for a parking place. It rained everyday last week creating terrible surf conditions. Saturday a huge Maverick's size swell came in with another weather front causing big waves and raw, rough conditions. Sunday it calmed down and rumor had it that Bolinas was protected from the wind and conditions were good. Everyone was anxious for some waves for today. Thus like always happens with big swells, surfers who normally go to Salmon Creek, Dillon's or Ocean Beach, came to Bolinas where the waves were rideable.

I met Jacek at the seawall at the base of the ramp checking out the waves. We watched sixteen surfers bunched around the north edge of a big Channel peak. Hank and his son Clint were out there. The waves were rough and bumpy and the rides were brief - big drops into flat shoulders or vertical drops into close outs.

"I'm going to wait, with the tide dropping it's going to get better," Jacek exclaimed. "Look at that left, it will really shape up in an hour. I have the time, I will hang around for awhile." He went on to rave about the huge waves he saw yesterday at Drakes Beach - big swells, strong offshore wind and incredible right barrels. But only one out of ten was makeable. Needless to say, he didn't go out, no one did; it was too big. He just enjoyed the beauty of the waves.

I walked up to the overlook above the Groin to take some pictures. Look at the above photo - luck was with me, I caught one surfer dropping down a well-formed peak. But believe me that was the only decent wave that I saw at the Channel this morning.

Twelve surfers were at the Patch. All my friends went there: Mary, Marty, DB the Safeway checker, Francine, David who rides the Becker board, Mark the archaeologist, Ray the Petaluma fireman, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider, Shu-Shu from Dogtown and stand-up guys Frank, Russ and Walt. I decided to join them and the mellow waves at the Patch.

Out in the water, Mark raved about how good it was yesterday.

"Where?" I asked.

"Right here, at the Patch."

"Wasn't it crowed?" Being Sunday with a big swell.

"No, it wasn't. I couldn't believe it. There were no cars parked along Brighton. With all the warnings about big waves and high winds, people must have stayed away. It was ideal - glassy, twice as big as today, long, long rides and only four people out. We had it to ourselves for two hours."

Being retired I don't surf on weekends, but I was thinking maybe I really missed it, with Mark's tale and Jacek talking about the incredible barrels at Drakes. I asked David if he had come out over the weekend. David gave a different story. He came here yesterday and met Mark as he was coming up the ramp after his two-hour session. Per David the surf was rough, all over the place and crowded. He didn't bother going out. Now he always arrives early, thus Mark must have been in the water as the sun was coming up, when the winds were light and before the crowd had arrived.

I paddled out to the far peak at the Patch to join Mark, David and Marty. Mary, DB and Francine were north and inside going for the lefts. The peaks were all over the place, thus the twelve of us in the water were spread across a two hundred yard area - crowd was not a factor. The waves were flat, varied in size and were difficult to catch. The sets would break way outside and then reform and break again. I had success catching the white water of the first break and riding them into the second break. That often didn't work - the first break didn't always have enough force to carry me into the reforming wave. I paddled for several of them and thinking I was into the waves, I went to stand up and they would die.

After forty-five minutes, Jacek paddled out to join us. I felt vindicated; I had made the correct decision. Here was the expert, who had waited for the Channel to improve and finally realized that the best waves were at the Patch. He did his usual maneuver of waiting way outside for the sets and successfully managed to catch the biggest wave of each set and milk all the way in.

I didn't have any memorable rides, but I did have fun. I caught five decent lefts in a row that all reformed on the inside over the shallow water of the Patch reef. I had one where the wave jumped up and I dropped vertically over the edge of a three-foot curl. I free fell, the nose of the board dipped into the water and bounced back up; the wave bucked me like a bucking bronco and bounced me off, where I quickly went spread-eagle with my arms and legs out because I knew I was only in two feet of water. The tide was getting too low for any more lefts, thus I moved south of the Patch reef to join David and Jacek. I caught a couple of decent rights and worked my way in. After an hour and a half I was spent. Time to call it a day.

Walking down the beach with the tide now way out, I looked back at the Patch and saw David on another good one. What a beautiful sight - long lines of white water, a container ship on the horizon, pelicans cruising overhead with warm sunshine and a blue sky. It doesn't get much better than this.