January 16, 2008 Wednesday

Bolinas	Straight out from the ramp
9:00 am to 10:00 am	6 inches to 1 ft
Low, dropping tide	Slight offshore breeze
Sunny, clear and freezing cold	Waste of time

What a waste of time.  Why did we ever go out?

In the above photo, Scott, who only surfs on Wednesdays, waits for a wave. He is out to the left of the ramp at Bolinas. Note the lack of swells. Marty, Doug, Robert the Oakland fireman and I stood on the seawall at the base of the ramp and watched Scott catch a couple of small mushy waves. There’s nothing impressive here. The Channel and the Patch were flat. There were some potential right pealing waves on the Seadrift side of the Channel but one would have to paddle across the ragging river of current pouring out of the lagoon.

Robert stated he was going out. Because of his work schedule, he doesn’t have many opportunities to get out into the water. Also, it was his birthday, he just turned 45, and he was going to celebrate by surfing. Like lemmings, we all agreed to join him.

The waves were non-existent. I paddled out to where Scott was and then gradually had to paddle in and further in to catch anything. I caught a six-inch wave and managed to get a little bit of curl. Again and again I went for waves that were barely rideable. The water was cold, I had my regular 3 mm booties on and my toes were beginning to go numb. After 30 minutes, I gave it up. So did Marty and Doug. Even talk about “it’s good to get out in the water” did not justify this lousy session.

One of the phenomena of cold is evaporation. When I take off my booties and expose my feet and toes to the outside breeze, evaporation sucks out all the heat and the numbness sets in. It happened with a vengeance today. After changing the four of us walked into town to get coffee. While chatting there outside the Coast Cafe, my right foot, ankle and leg went numb. So numb that I could barely stand. I had to constantly move my foot around to get the circulation going. Fortunately the walk back to the car and placing my foot under the blast of the car’s heater revived the feeling in my foot.

I did gather water samples at Bolinas and Stinson, drove them out to Branson and checked the Surfrider post office box in Larkspur before making it home. Of course it was another beautiful day in Marin.