April 1, 2013

Bolinas	Groin
9:30 am to 11:00 am	2’ to 4’, occasional head-high waves
Low outgoing tide	No wind to slight onshore breeze
Misty rain to overcast to bright sunshine	Fun session

Jacek, who had just suited up, laid out two surfboards on the ground next to his car – a shorter high performance board (7’ 0” my guess) and his 9’ 4” yellow Fresh Pineapple longboard.

“So which board are you going to take?”

“Both!”

“Both? Are you going to carry both of them down to the beach?”

“Yes. Could you help me to pick them up?”

He had the short one under his left arm and I tucked his long board under his right arm and off he went.

I had high hopes for waves this morning. The San Francisco buoy reported 6 ft NW swells at 17 seconds, a slight NE breeze and 51 degrees water temperature. When I checked out the waves, DB the Safeway checker was the only one at the Patch. Nine surfers were at the Groin connecting on two to four-foot left peeling curls. Out there were David who rides the Becker board, Marty, Hank and Russ the stand-up guy.

When I paddled out to the Groin, Jacek was sitting outside of everyone else on his colorful shortboard. He stroked into a four-foot wave, quickly turned right, ran to the nose and stood there for a few seconds until a wall of water collapsed around him. Thirty minutes he went in and changed boards. He also took off his booties because the water was warm (relatively speaking) and paddled back out on his yellow Fresh Pineapple longboard. Thirty minutes after that he switched boards again. So his final call was the shortboard.

I paddled out to join Hank, Marty and David. I caught one right away, but some beginner was standing with his board directly in my path. I had to bail out to prevent hitting him. Then I went into a dry spell. I tried for and missed ten waves in a row. Hank, Marty and David didn’t have any troubles; they caught one good wave after another. For forty-five minutes my frustration was mounting, but I was confident it would happen because the lefts looked so good, and it finally did. I don’t know how to explain it – either I figured it out, or the tide changed conditions or the waves got better. At last I connected on a four-foot wall, cut left, climbed high in the curl, stepped to the middle of the board and hummed across a steep curl until it broke all around me. Now I was into it. My next four waves were long, fast, well-formed lefts.

This morning I felt that my rehab was over. My arms were strong – of course there was less paddling at the Groin, especially at low tide. I could walk out to the waves. Given these conditions I stayed out an hour and a half, just like in the old days before my operation.

“David you must be hungry, it’s 10:50, lunch time.”

“You’re right. I start to get the shakes for my Swiss cheese sandwich.” Every morning David makes a cheese sandwich for his car ride home to Berkeley after his surf sessions.

“What kind of bread to you use?”

“Brownberry wheat bread with a slab of lettuce.”

“You put any mustard or mayonnaise on it?”

“No. I’m a sawdust sandwich type of guy.” I exited the water at eleven and David was still out there. He walked by my car at 11:30, another three and half hour session.

As usual, it was just another beautiful Marin morning.