January 25, 2013 Friday

Bolinas	Patch
10:00 am to 11:00 am	2’ to 3’, sets 4’
High dropping tide	Slight offshore cross breeze
Warm sunny day, clouds on the horizon	Fun session

Today was my second session since my return to surfing. I did better; I caught four waves in an hour and again exhausted myself. My rides were nothing to write about; I’m still back to re-learning it all over again.

On my first ride, the wave broke on my back, and I rocketed towards shore in the white water lying down. I jumped up to my knees and fell off attempting to stand-up. My legs were trembling. The same thing happened on my first wave last Monday. Then I promised myself to start doing deep knee bends, 20 of them everyday to build up leg strength. My first wave today reminded me to start doing those deep knee bends. There’s no putting it off if I want to pop up quickly like I used to.

That’s Hank taking off at the Groin in the above photo. A six-foot high tide prevented waves from breaking at the Patch and the Malibo rights were forming north of the Groin Pole. The entire Groin wall was submerged. Water was rushing up the ramp making it impossible to get to the seawall, thus I went directly to the overlook above the Groin to check out the waves. I was disappointed because I wanted to go for the gentle waves at the Patch for my “surf re-hab”. But I was determined to go out and only four surfers were at the Groin – Hank, Mary, David who rides the Becker board and Mark the archaeologist.

Mark exited the water and I connected with him at the top of the ramp. He said the waves were ok; nothing spectacular and that Mary had just left paddling to the Patch, a long paddle. Hank came back to his car as I was suiting up. He too said the waves were ok and that Susan who always wears sunglasses in the water was heading out to the Patch. That did it – back to Plan A, I headed for the Patch to join Mary and Susan. The high tide had three to four-foot walls crashing into the north seawall forcing me to enter the water from the Sandbox, the patch of sand between the two seawalls. This made for a long paddle to the line up. Susan and Mary were mere specs on the water. It took me fifteen minutes to paddle out there and already my arms were feeling it.

Mary greeted me by reminding me that she too has been out of the water for several weeks due to a bad back. She also was getting back into it, re-learning little by little as she put it. I too was re-learning everything. However, Mary seemed to be doing fine. She easily caught waves, popped up quickly and skillfully maneuvered down the faces. On the other hand, I had to wait until the waves were breaking to catch them, and remain lying down to be sure I was in them, jump up to my knees and then slowly stand up. As Mary said, we were re-learning it little by little.

After my fourth wave I headed for shore. I had been out for an hour and was exhausted, why push it? But getting in was a hassle. The tide was still high and the three to four-foot shore break was pounding the north seawall. I figured I would go directly in and go up the metal gangplank at the north end of the seawall, walk along the top and go down the ladder rungs that are bolted into the south end. Besides my arms were tired. Easier said than done. To my surprise, the gangplank would not pull down. Then my only option was to re-enter the water and paddle around the wall. With my exhausted arms I struggled to get out beyond the shore pounders, paddle the length of the wall and to head in. When I was about six feet from shore I jumped off my board to walk to in. Wrong! The water was still over my head. The currents had gouged out a deep channel along the shore. A big pounder came through, picked me up and deposited me on dry sand.

Sitting out there between sets I soaked up the scenery. The weather was perfect; much warmer than Monday, even the water was warmer -- bright sunshine, blue water, spray coming off the tops of the curls. By noon the wind had died and the surface glassed off. Now I realized just how much I had missed these perfect Marin mornings.