September 11, 2008 Thursday

Bolinas	Channel
8:50 am to 11:00 am	3' to 4', sets 5' to 6'
Mid upcoming tide	SE cross breeze, later no wind
High overcast	Excellent session

Perfection – Bolinas at its best.

I caught eight, and I was counting them, shoulder to head high fast glassy, perfect peeling left curls at the Channel this morning. The New Zealand south swell that Stormsurf had predicted for a week was still pumping: 2.6 ft south swell at 14 seconds, combined with a 4.5 ft northwest wind swell at nine seconds. By 10:00 am there was no wind, none, nada and the surface was tabletop smooth. At the furthest peak at the Channel every ten minutes a set of clean four to six foot waves came marching through and only five of us were out there.

When I checked out the Channel Marty and another guy were there. I watched Marty connect on three long curl rides. I knew I was in for some good waves. At first I was having trouble locating the best take off point. The waves were breaking fast, so positioning and timing were important. Josh the Bolinas fisherman and his younger fishing companion, who was learning to surf, came paddling out. Josh went straight for the furthest peak at the Channel, sat there a couple of minutes and connected with a beautiful five-foot wall, which he made. I got a perfect sideways view of Josh on his knees, which is his style, locked in the curl with the lip of the wave pitching over his head.

Seeing this I paddled over to the point where Josh had been. I lined myself up with the big white house at the end of Wharf Road, which put me on the north edge of the Channel. Within minutes I caught a good, clean, fast, peeling wall. My first great ride, I paddled back to the same point, waited another couple of minutes, in came another one, and I did it again.

Five of us were out there for an hour picking off these perfect waves: Marty, Josh, Josh’s fishing buddy, Ken another Bolinas regular and myself. Each of us scored several good waves. After two hours I was exhausted and ready to go in. Marty had already left and Josh and his companion were talking about one more wave. “We need a set of three waves,” Josh stated, and a couple of minutes later in it came. I missed the first one, Josh and friend caught the next two and fortunately for me there was a fourth one, a big one. I went for it, pushed myself over the edge, dropped into a head high wall, climbed to mid-curl, crouched down and screamed across a glassy face. I didn’t make it, the wave collapsed in front of me into a mountain of white water and I dove into the turbulence. What a great way to end the session. As I walk along the beach to the ramp I looked back at the Channel, Ken was paddling back out to the far peak while another beautiful wave peeled down the line unridden.

I chatted with Marty and Tom in the parking lot. All three of us were excited about this morning’s quality waves. I introduced myself to Tom who is about my age and I have seen here for years. He went out at the Channel but had moved to the Patch where he scored several good long rides. He mentioned that he had been surfing at Bolinas since 1965 his favorite spot and he was going to retire in nine days. Marty and I chimed in that retirement was wonderful and both of us are surfing three to five times a week. I proudly related to Tom that I had dropped thirty pounds and fifteen points off my blood pressure. Tom is a counselor for the county sheriff’s department, a high stress position. With sadness he talked about a long time close work companion who was looking forward to retirement had just dropped over from cancer. His story reminded us that you have to go for it while your health is still sound.