June 30, 2014 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
10:30 am to 12 noon	2', sets to 3', occasional 4'
Mid upcoming tide	NW cross breeze to no wind
Air temp: 65 degrees	Water temp: 57 degrees
Sunny with high clouds	Fun session

Birthday Tribute to Mary

Susan who always wears sunglasses in the water organized a birthday celebration for Mary, which turned out to be a gathering of our surf tribe. Susan set the time for 9:00 am, that period of overlap between the dawn patrollers and us of the gentlemen's hour.

Attendees: in the photo above (left to right) Creighton, Walt the photographer, Mary, Susan who always wears sunglasses, Frank the stand-up guy, Hank, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider, and Larry brother of Russ the other stand-up guy.

Other attendees: Martha with her new Dewey Weber board and Hans who just had his car broken into twice in the last two weeks.

Susan went all out. Check out the spread in the photo – foldout picnic table, two colorful table cloths with maps of California, two gallons of Starbuck's coffee and two homemade coffee cakes (blueberry and sugar), orange juice and bananas. With a lot of chatter about birthdays and age, the crew had their fill and cleared the table of all its goodies. General consensus was that we should have these gatherings more often. Happy birthday Mary and thank you Susan for putting it together.

"Check the calendar and check your watch, there has been a Jack sighting!"

I spotted Jack the Dave Sweet team rider coming up the ramp from checking out the waves shortly before the birthday celebration for Mary. I had not seen him in months. Per Jack a combination of lousy surf, fishing trips and a bad tendon in his shoulder had kept him out of the water. A small deck varnishing job for a friend, good weather and Mary's birthday had brought him back to Bolinas.

Over coffee cake we discussed the Kahuna Kapuna surf contest, the annual older guys contest held at Linda Mar in Pacifica. A few years ago, Jack talked me into entering the contest with him, which I did, and for three years in row we were there. We were in the same age group (65 to 69 year-olds) and were guaranteed a trophy because only five guys were in that age group. Neither one of us entered the contest last year or this year. Jack felt he was screwed out of first place by the local bias of the judges and thus didn't want anything more to do with these guys, and I wasn't going the enter if Jack was not there. Today we had a change of heart. Jack will soon turn 70 and so will I in May, thus we vowed to enter next year's contest because we would be the "young guns" in the 70 to 75 age group. Wish us luck!

After loading up on caffeine and sugar, Jack, Martha, Hans and I headed out to the Patch for a few waves. Fortunately the waves were good, especially the inside rights – a good time was had by all.