June 28, 2013 Friday

Bolinas	Patch
8:15 am to 9:30 am	3' to 4', occasional 5'
Low dropping tide	Slight onshore breeze to NW cross wind
On-the-deck fog to patchy clouds, warm heat-wave weather	Fun session

Martha had just come from checking the waves as I pulled up this morning.

"So how is it?"

"I don't know, I couldn't see a thing. Don't bother taking your camera. The fog is too thick."

Fog was the story this morning. The Bay Area was locked into another high-pressure heat wave. Mill Valley was sunny and clear, but an On-The-Deck fog gripped the coast.

"Are you going out?"

"Yes, judging by the cars, several of the regulars are out there." That included: Mary, Hank, DB the Safeway checker, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider, Paul the Mill Valley swim coach, Mark the archaeologist, Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and stand-up guy Frank.

Martha was right, I couldn't see pass the shore break and could barely see the outline of the cliff. The fog had lifted a bit when I entered the water, but I still couldn't see any surfers from the shore. I figured I would paddled for the outside rock at the Patch and run into the crowd. I followed the white water pattern around the Patch reef rocks. I paddled a few minutes and didn't see anybody. I paddled some more and still didn't see anyone. I kept expecting to see the outside rock, but I never saw it. Finally south of me, I caught a glimpse of Frank on his stand-up. Next I saw the outline of Paul coming left on a slow three-foot wave coming towards me. To my surprise I was north of the crowd. I then began heading out and to the south, and a minute later I saw the rock, the crowd, paddled over to them and greeted them all.

"Temperamental south swell," that was what Hank called it afterwards while we were having breakfast at the Parkside in Stinson Beach, temperamental due to the long waits between sets. The swell was all over the place. This morning the San Francisco buoy reported 3 to 4-foot south swell at 15 seconds. A new south swell had arrived yesterday, was going to peak today and would slowly fade over the weekend.

When first out there, I missed a couple of set waves and decided to move in a little. Hank and Martha remained outside, some thirty yards beyond the outside rock. Then they began paddling out and so did I. Three big waves broke fifteen yards beyond them with me scratching like mad behind them. All three of us had to plough through a ton of white water. This was typical of this morning. Long periods of small waves breaking near the rock to infrequent sets that broke twenty to thirty yards further out. With the thick fog, we couldn't see the sets coming and were often caught inside.

My first wave was my best ride. I took off on a wall that stretched across the impact zone. I turned left while white water slid down the face in front of me, cruised under it, climbed back into the swell, positioned high in the curl, locked my inside rail under the peeling lip, crouched down and cruised through a fast section. I cut back to stay in the wave and pushed it as far I could.

Jaime was back in water today and cruising after his run-in with some rocks at the Patch that injured his ribs. I watched him catch a set wave and milk it all the way into the inside, near the rocks that had injured him. He handled it with skill and grace - "no harm, no foul."

Hank gave me that one more wave sign and proceeded outside. He connected on a four-foot set wave and kept coming and coming. I caught a good side view of him locked in the curl, mid-board, mid-wave as he sailed by me. He calmly kept going and working that wave all the way to shore. I'll swear he traveled nearly a quarter mile.

We ended this beautiful morning with a good breakfast at the Parkside.

  

June 17, 2013 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
8:20 am to 9:40 am	0 ft, sets 1' to 2'
High dropping tide	Offshore breeze to stiff NW cross wind
Clear sunny morning	Exercise session

A Beautiful Flat Morning

As you can see in the above photo, it was a beautiful morning with no waves.

Ten people were out at the Channel at 7:20 am. As I walked from the ramp to the Groin, no one caught a wave. In fact nothing remotely rideable came through. Finally a couple of two-footers arrived, a guy I didn't recognize caught the first one and a goofy-foot female caught the second one. Everyone else remained sitting there waiting for who knows what. A few minutes later another set of two-footers appeared and the same two caught them. When they exited the water I finally recognized them — Clark and Kathy, the biology teachers.

"Loren, it's cold out there," Clark greeted me. "It must be 48 degrees. This past weekend's wind has stirred up the water."

Surf predictions for this morning were dismal — Stormsurf.com's graphic for the whole North Bay (Point Reyes to Santa Cruz) depicted a 1.5 foot north combined with a 1.4 south resulting in one to two-foot swells for the whole area. With glassy conditions this morning and declining swells for the rest of the week, I decided to go out.

The others out at the Channel were Hank (his first day back from a week trip to Kansas), David who rides the Becker board, Russ on his stand-up, and Bill from Berkeley on his wave-ski. Mary and Creighton were out at the Patch.

The waves were nothing to write about. I managed to catch several tiny ones that forced me to work on jumping up. Thanks to Clark's warning I wore gloves, and despite that protection after an hour my hands were going numb. Hank was the first of us to go in and I followed him in a few minutes later. At 9:53 precisely, while I was changing, David came by — a new early exit record for him. He usually stays out until eleven.

The highlight of the morning was two ospreys diving for fish. These incredible fliers would circle about twenty feet above the water, swoop down to the surface and with a small splash would hook a fish with their claws, and immediately take off with a fish dangling below them. Then the race was on, seagulls would pursue them attempting to steal their catch. Fortunately both ospreys outmaneuvered the gulls.

Yes it was another beautiful morning in Marin. 

June 5, 2013 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
9:10 am to 10:40 am	1’ to 2’, sets to 3’
Mid upcoming tide	Slight NW cross breeze
Overcast – June gloom	Exercise session

I met a new friend out in the water this morning – Archie from Mill Valley, older guy, exactly my age, longboarder. He was out at the Channel with Mary, DB the Safeway checker and Bill from Berkeley on his wave ski. That’s Archie on a set wave at the Channel in the above photo.

After being out at the Groin by myself for a few minutes, Archie paddled over from the Channel to join me.

“Did you give up on the Channel?” I asked.

“No, we realized we were in the path of the fishing boats.” A couple of local fishermen had passed by them, kicking up a huge wake and messing up the waves. Mary exited the water when I entered it. DB left a few minutes later and Bill paddled from the Channel to the ramp, and now Archie and I were by ourselves at the Groin.

He introduced himself and asked if I was regular here, of course I am. I started surfing here in 1988. That started off a conversation of trading our surfing histories. Archie and I have a lot in common. Both of us are 68 years old, we both starting surfing as kids, then had a long gap of several years of not surfing and then returned to the sport.

Archie grew up in San Diego and learned to surf at Ocean Beach (that’s Ocean Beach, San Diego, not San Francisco) and surfed there everyday for years. I’m familiar with Ocean Beach, my son used to live there, it’s a great beach town with a big sandy beach, a strand and lots of funky little shops and eateries, similar to Hermosa Beach in LA.

He moved to the Bay Area to go to college at SF State in 1962. That was the era of lousy wetsuits, no leashes, and tons of drugs. All the surfers were into drugs – including the hard stuff like heroin. Archie didn’t want to be associated with those creeps, so he gave up surfing. That started a 38-year gap in surfing where marriage, career and family intervened.

He returned to surfing in 2000 when on a business trip to Hawaii. At this point I stopped him. I had heard this story before. Archie and I had connected one morning a year ago at Linda Mar. I remembered it. It was just before the Kahuna Kupuna Surf Contest and I was at Linda Mar to tune up for the contest. He was considering entering it. That got us talking and he told me his story. In fact I wrote about him in my July 12, 2012 Surf Journal post.

During this business trip Archie had a room on the 20^th floor in one of the big hotels at Waikiki. He sat up there watching the surfers having a ball in the water. That took him back to younger days. The next day he rented a board, paddled out at Waikiki, was out for four hours and had a blast. On his flight home, he had an epiphany to take up surfing again. He stressed about how he was going to announce to his wife and grown-up kids that he was going to take up surfing again. They thought he was nuts. But since that moment he has been surfing for 13 years and loves it.

Most of his surfing has been at Linda Mar and points south. He has recently discovered Bolinas. I welcomed him and encouraged him to join us. If you see him out at the Channel or the Patch, say hello and share some waves with him.