November 21, 2008 Friday

Bolinas	Patch
9:30 am to 11:00 am	3', sets to 4'
Mid outgoing tide	Slight offshore breeze
Bright sunshine	Mellow session

Intense or mellow, which one should it be? I chose mellow and that was the wrong decision.

The Channel and Groin had continuous head-high to overhead fast breaking powerful waves coming through. That looked intense. The Patch had smaller, longer, gentler waves rolling through way out there. That looked mellow to me. The Internet sites had some impressive numbers this morning: 11 ft swell at 15 seconds from West-Northwest (282 degrees), which is close to Maverick’s size waves. Stormsurf reported six to twelve feet waves going into Bolinas.

I just wasn’t in the mindset for intense waves. I had a lot to do, like pack for a weeklong trip to Barcelona, Spain, leaving tomorrow. Today was going to be my last day surfing for ten days.

I met Jeff coming up the ramp from the end of his session. “How was it?” I asked.

“Great. I was way out at the Channel,” he responded. “There’s a big peak breaking both left and right. It was great.”

At the overlook above the Patch, Nate, one of the owners of the Prooflab Surf Shop, came up the road, wetsuit on, a small 5’- 6” potato chip of a board under his arm and still dripping wet.

“The inside waves are bowling up real nicely,” he said. “Look at that left,” pointing at a picturesque fast peeling left just north of the Groin wall. “It was great,” and off he went.

Despite two “it was great” recommendations, I chose mellow. Mary and Matt were at the Patch and the outflow current from the lagoon was starting to impact the shape of the waves at the Channel. Those were my excuses for not choosing intense.

When I paddled out, Mary and Matt were way on the inside of the Patch just south of the rocks over sand. “Why are you here?” I asked Mary.

“No particular reason, just looking for the good peak,” she said. That indicated to me that it wasn’t very good outside. Sometimes on a good swell long well defined right waves form at this peak. I think Mary was hoping to find one of those, but it just wasn’t there. I caught one right that quickly ran out of steam and just died.

Matt and I paddled out to the far peak, which wasn’t any better. Despite the strong swell, the waves didn’t line up. They formed small random peaks across the impact zone. Most people go for the rights. I like to move outside and north of everyone else and go for the lefts. This beats the crowd and the waves are steeper due to the shallow water over the rocks. Today the lefts were there, but there just wasn’t any push in the waves. Matt went for the rights and caught several. I connected with one good one, a four-foot set wave. The swell lined up across the outside peak. I waited to let it build, took off late, which is not a problem in these gentle waves, quickly moved to the center of the board and cruised under the white water sliding down from the crest of the wave, climbed up in the curl, stalled to let it build up again and hummed through another section, cut back into the white water, let the swell build up again and cruised through one more section. I went a long way and ended up on the north edge of the Patch reef on the inside in knee high water. Two women novices were impressed; I could see it in the expressions on their faces.

After an hour I gave it up and started working my way back to the ramp. The idea was to catch a wave, go right, paddle towards the ramp, catch another wave, etc. This effort didn’t work out as planned. The first wave I caught was a good left, which moved me in the wrong direction. I paddled south. Sizeable swells were coming through, but they didn’t break until they pounded on shore. I ended up getting some great exercise paddling all the way to the ramp.

Afterwards, I ran into Ray, the Petaluma fireman. “Ray did you get called to fight the Montecito fire?” I asked. Hot dry Santana wind conditions prevailed in Southern California last week setting off several brush fires, one being in Montecito in the Santa Barbara area.

“Yes we sent one engine and one crew,” he said. “By the time we got there the fire was just smoldering. It was so fast and hot it burned two hundred houses in one day. The fire was essentially over when we got there.” I related to Ray that when I was a freshman at UCSB in 1963 there was a big fire in Montecito. My friend Greg, who has a house there, told me this year’s fire was in the exact same spot as the 1963 fire. The Santana winds funnel down this particular canyon.

A surfer never admits his session was bad, but choosing mellow was the wrong decision. However, it was a beautiful day, I had things on my mind, and I had just burned off 1000 calories.