February 17, 2017 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
10:00 am to 11:30 am	3' to 4', occasional 5'
Mid upcoming tide	Stiff offshore wind
Sunny with high clouds	Fun session

I almost talked myself out of surfing this morning. An approaching cold and a stuffy nose hampered my sleep last night, the temperature outside had dropped into the thirties, my fingers went numb strapping the board onto the top of my car, today was the Presidents' Day holiday, schools were out and people were off from work. It was the third day of a three-day weekend and Bolinas would be crowded. I got the last parking spot by the tennis court. Twenty surfers were out at the Channel going for some big walls that collapsed too quickly for anyone to get a good ride.

A short boarder who I had chatted with a few times out in the water last summer was walking up the ramp after his session. He reported that the waves were disappointing, the swell was all over the place, the waves were thick, difficult to catch, and once you dropped over the edge and the ride was over. Thus the Channel was out of the question – unorganized sloppy waves, crowded, cold offshore wind and an upcoming tide pushing up the ramp forcing one to enter the water there.

The Patch was different with twenty surfers spread out across a wide area. Incoming lines stretched across several peaks and the waves were random and breaking all over the place. My friends were telling me that despite the sizeable swell the waves weren't happening. Mary, who had just finished her session at the Patch, was disappointed. She had expected bigger waves (buoy reading was 8 ft at 13 seconds), the water was cold and the waves were difficult to catch. Hank exited the water with a similar report – cold, difficult to catch and breaking all over the place. At that point I was ready to kiss it off.

Then David who used to ride the Becker board caught a good one, and three friends who I had not seen in months showed up. Jacek the tattoo artist entered the water. He was wearing a hood, so I didn't recognize him until he was up close. As usual he was excited about going surfing and quickly jumped into the water. Within minutes he had scored on a fast inside curl. That's him in the above photo.  At the bottom of the ramp was Paul, a Branson School parent, paddling out on his stand-up. He waved and headed for the far peak at the Patch. At the top of the ramp was Yoshi, the owner of Umi, the sushi restaurant in San Rafael. He raved about the good waves that he scored on yesterday and was hoping to do the same today. Friends were in the water, the sun had come out, the air was warming up, and with no obligations this afternoon today was my day to go surfing. I decided to go out.

Boy was I glad I did; I had a great time. The waves were big, fat, powerful and frequent. After a couple of so-so rides, I got the hang of it – stay inside and take off late. Conditions (bottom, direction of the swell and wind) forced all the waves to break to the right. I kept hoping for some lefts, but they never came. After an hour I connected on my best wave. I was outside at our usual take off point near the outside rock, which was under the water with water swirling above it. A sizeable set wave approached, a definite right. It peaked north of me and I could hear the breaking part of the wave roaring towards me as I paddled for it. Sounding like a train, the wave scooped me up and I dropped down a head high face. Angling right while falling down the face, I leaned into curl to gain speed, shot through the first section, stalled to let the wave build up and again leaned into the peak, this time I climbed high in the curl, stepped to the middle of the board and hummed under a feathering lip, cut back and worked it into the shore break. What a great ride.

This put me way south and inside where David, Jacek and Rob (Mr. Malibu) were dominating a clean inside peak. I joined them, connected on a couple of good curls and called it a day.

Way outside the whole time was Hawaiian Steve on his stand-up. This guy was incredible. He has that Hawaiian style of paddling on his knees with his ass on his ankles, paddling two strokes on one side and then two stokes on the other side. I marveled at the waves he caught. Way outside (like 100 yards beyond the outside rock) the big sets would peak and sometimes break. Steve could catch them. A big wave approached, Steve started paddling like mad on his knees in the middle of his board and his head hanging over the nose to push into the wave. He jumped up, faded left into the peak, swung back right and then cut back left as the wave built up again. The wave started to break to the left and Steve was at the very top standing on the nose cutting under the lip of the curl. Again he swung around right and nursed that wave all the way into shore, a distance of nearly a quarter mile.

Yes it was just another beautiful morning in Marin.