January 7, 2008 Monday

Bolinas	Ramp
8:30 am	2’ to 3’, sets to 4’
Incoming high tide – 6.3 ft at 9:30 am	Slight offshore breeze
Sunny, clear and cold	Tide too high – didn’t go out

Today was a break in the weather. A major storm had passed through the Bay Area over the last four days. Last Thursday and Friday wind gusts up to 60 mph ripped up trees and tore down power lines. Over two million PG&E customers were without power sometime during this period. For us the power went out Friday morning at 6:00 am and stayed off until 8:00 pm that night. Then the next day, Saturday, it went out again and stayed out until Sunday noon. The prize grass-fed beefsteaks that Kate had given me for Christmas thawed. There I was in the cold and light rain Sunday grilling steaks on the barbecue. We invited Kevin over for a great steak dinner.

By Monday the storm had passed and there was hope that there would be surf. As I arrived to the parking spots on Brighton Ave in Bolinas, Mary was there to greet me. Her board was still in her car and she was bundled up in her winter clothes. Not a good sign.

She told me that Doug had gone out at the Groin, the Patch was flat due to the high tide and that she was going pass today. She had to take her daughter back to Stanford that afternoon.

She pointed out the large pool of water in the road before the start of the boat ramp. She claimed it was caused by the waves washing up the ramp and onto the street during high tide. With camera in hand, I went to check it out. Mary was right. The storm had washed out even more sand and there was nothing to impede the incoming water. One could not walk down the ramp due to the waves rushing in. The above photo shows the waves pounding the seawall. I went up the hill to look at the Groin from the cliff. I looked and looked but I didn’t see Doug. I took a couple of pictures and headed for the car.

As I approached the cars, I saw Doug was at his truck taking off his wetsuit. Obviously the surfed sucked if a hard-ass like Doug was coming in so soon. He claimed it was terrible. He caught two right waves just outside the Groin and rode them way into the mouth of the lagoon. The incoming current was so strong that he had a hell of a time paddling back out. He said he would paddle and paddle and then look to his right and see that he was still even with the sign at the end of the Groin wall. Also, the waves were pounding the seawall, sending back a huge backwash. It was unsafe to paddle back to the ramp. Doug caught a second wave, rode it as far as he could into the lagoon, got out of the water there, and walked up Wharf Road through town to Brighton Ave to get back to his car.

There’s no surf today, thus I quickly changed plans. I walked into town to get coffee and along the way took several pictures of Bolinas. These will be part of the photo journal of my favorite town. I got some good shots of the classic junk cars and the creative hand-painted signs. Only in Bolinas do you see these things.

I took water samples at Bolinas and Stinson, drove to Branson to deliver them and headed home.