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.