August 17, 2012 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
8:45 am to 11:00 am	2’ to 3’, sets to 4’
Mid upcoming tide	No wind to slight onshore breeze
Overcast to patchy sun	Great session

 Today was a special day. It was my last surf session for at least six weeks, because I was scheduled for prostate cancer surgery next Tuesday, with sign-in and pre-op on Monday. Thus today was it, and I was determined to go out no matter what. The cancer was detected last March, and since prostate cancer progresses slowly we scheduled the operation for August 21^st, after Kate and mine and the doctor’s vacations. So for five months I knew this day was coming. Fortunately, the surf conditions were great.

Ten surfers were bunched together at a peak straight out from the Groin pole, including regulars: Doug, Ray the Petaluma fireman, Kathy the biology teacher, David who rides the Becker board and Russ the stand-up guy. They were scrambling for the infrequent small, fast peeling, glassy curls. “Knee-high curls, my kind of waves; I’m going.”

As I entered the water, I noticed that the set waves peaked north of the pack and peeled right up to the sand. I decided to separate myself from the crowd and go for those waves. I lined up at the end of the retaining wall of the house on the south side of the ramp and waited. Within a couple of minutes, I stroked into a three-foot curl, hung high in the curl and cruised across a perfectly formed wave until it crashed on the shore. That did it; this was my spot. I quickly connected on two more good waves.

Further north and inside of me was the surfer that I had seen last Friday who skillfully caught numerous small curls. This guy knew what he was doing – smoothly and with great speed he would paddle into small flat waves, glide into waves, cleanly turn left, take one step, pause to make sure he was in the wave and then walk the nose and plant five toes on the tip of the board. He had light hair, thin, 40 years or so, with no booties or leash on a nose riding longboard. I heard him mention the other day that he had learned to surf at Malibu and to beat the crowd he moved to Point Dune, which is north of Malibu and just south of Zuma Beach. To me he was “Mr. Malibu” – reason, he had the ability to ride six-inch waves. That’s him in the above photo. All the regulars at Malibu can ride six-inch waves. They have to for two reasons: one, to beat the crowd and two, most of the time the waves are tiny. Malibu breaks on summer south swells. The rest of the year it is flat or barely breaking when the big north swells wrap around the point into the south facing beach. Today, between sets, Mr. Malibu caught one tiny wave after another. He also had the ability to see the sets coming. Whenever a set came through, he was in position to catch the first wave. He never stopped moving, catch a wave, paddle out and immediately catch another one, regardless of size.

Following his lead, I went for every wave I could catch. For nearly an hour only Mr. Malibu and I were on this peak. Later, David moved over to join us. The three of us shared this peak for another hour. Conditions improved: the sun broke through the clouds, the wind died and the water was warm. Since this was my last session for a while, I kept going until I couldn’t lift my arms anymore. 

Driving up the Panoramic Highway, above Stinson Beach, I looked back on the deep blue ocean and thought it couldn’t have been better – warm water, glassy surface, a friendly crowd and clean crisp knee-high curls.