July 6, 2012 Friday

Bolinas	Patch
8:45 am to 10:30 am	Consistent 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	NW cross breeze
Overcast - June gloom in July	Fun session

The first decent south swell of the season arrived this morning. The San Francisco buoy reported 4 ft at 8 seconds, but that 4 ft was a combination of 2 ft NW swell at 8 seconds and a 2 ft south swell at 20 seconds. South swells come right into Bolinas and a good south swell at low tide often makes for some long rides at the Patch. At 8 am, no one was at the Channel or Groin, the tide was too low and the current was pouring out of the lagoon. The crowd was at the Patch. The waves were peaking a good 30 yards beyond the outside rock, which is a long ways from shore - at least a quarter of a mile. In the above picture Frank the stand up guy is on the left and Hank, Mary and David who rides the Becker board are on the right.

While making the long paddle at to the line-up, I watched Mary connect on a shoulder-high set wave. She dropped down the face, swung right into a long line. The wave broke as a wall, she continued moving across the white water while the wave reformed. She climbed back into curl and continued on for a long ways. After I paddled over the Mary's wave, here came Hank on an identical wave - head-high, cruised along the white water until the wave reformed, worked back into the swell and went on and on. Now I was excited. I could tell it was going to be a good session.

Everybody was going right, but I connected on several long, long lefts. On one good one, I stroked into a four-foot wall just as it was breaking. To my surprise, the bottom cause the wave to hold up, I leaned into it, climbed high in the curl, and cruised. The wave peaked, and I shot through a section, cut back and turned into another peak. The waves were breaking around the edge of the Patch reef causing a continuously reforming left wave for a hundred yards.

The waves were consistent. I would make the long paddle back out to the line-up, wait a couple of minutes and do it again. Mary and Hank went in and David moved to the inside peak south of the outside rock, thus I had the far peak to myself. Here I was sitting further out than anybody else patiently waiting for the next set. I applied Jacek's technique of waiting for the peak to crest then dig hard to coast into the top of the wave. This strategy worked and I connected on five more long lefts.

After an hour Walt the photographer and Steve came out on their stand-ups. Steve looks Hawaiian and has that Hawaiian style of paddling -- on his knees, butt on his heels and alternating the paddle with two strokes on the left side and then two strokes on the right side. Steve rides his stand-up like a nine-foot power-glide longboard. He even did the impossible -- hanging five at the Patch on a stand-up board. I had never seen that before.

After 90 minutes I was exhausted and headed in. Despite the "June gloom" overcast, it was a great morning due to the beautiful long rides at the Patch.