Bolinas
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Groin
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9:10 am to 10:40 am
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1’ to 2’, sets to 3’
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Mid upcoming tide
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Slight NW cross breeze
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Overcast – June gloom
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Exercise session
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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 20th 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.
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