March 11, 2009 Monday

Stinson Beach and Bolinas	All over
8:30 am to 11:00 am	2' to 4',
High incoming tide	Stiff onshore breeze
Sunny and cold	Frustrating session

Today we couldn’t make up our minds on where to surf.

At 7:45 am, I pulled into the parking lot at Stinson Beach to gather a water sample for Surfrider Foundation’s water testing program. To my surprise, Doug, Marty and Jim were there suiting up to go out.

“The surf must be flat at Bolinas for you guys to be here,” I greeted them. Bolinas is always our first choice.

“There are waves but they’re not very good, so we decided to come here,” Doug responded.

“Well get out there and I will take some photos of you.”

I stood on the beach, camera at the ready, and waited for one of them to catch a wave. And I waited, and waited and waited. “Boy, the surf is lousy,” I said to myself. Three-foot swells would double up forming unrideable walls. Peaks that looked promising would keep coming until they joined with wind chop to crumble in a heap near shore. Doug finally dropped into a head high set wave, went straight off and rode the soup into shore (pictured above). I made up my mind that I wasn’t going out into that slop. I waved to Marty to come in. Doug got out.

“Man, the surf is terrible, I’m going back to Bolinas,” Doug said to Marty and me. That became the plan: stay suited up and drive back to Bolinas. Marty has a new Primus and didn’t want to mess it up with his dripping wetsuit. Thus he left his car there, threw his board in the back of Doug’s pickup truck and jumped into my car for the ride back to Bolinas.

At Bolinas, Doug, Marty and Jim headed for the Groin. As I was suiting up, Ray the Petaluma fireman pulled up. Nothing looked good, so Ray and I decided to try our luck straight out from the ramp. Remembering the great rides I got there last week I was hoping for the best. The peak at the ramp was like Stinson only smaller. Ray and I fumbled around in the two-foot walls for half an hour and then decided to move. Ray headed for the Patch and I went to the Groin to join the others.

The waves at the Groin were worst: small, no power and infrequent. We spent an hour “getting good exercise,” which is surfer speak for “the waves sucked.” We would take off on promising peaks only to have the waves die after the initial break. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and cold, and we were optimistic that with the incoming tide the waves would get better. They never did, thus after burning up considerable energy paddling around we headed in. At the cars, Ray greeted us and confessed that the Patch wasn’t any good either. I changed and strapped Marty’s board to the top of my car and gave him a ride in his dripping wetsuit back to Stinson to pick up his car.

This morning we surfed Stinson, the base of the ramp, the Groin and the Patch and they all were disappointing. Forecast of a new swell gave promise of improved conditions in a couple of days. Until then we agreed to return and try again.