Monday, April 27, 2009

April 27, 2009 Monday




Bolinas

Seadrift

8:30 am to 9:45 am

2' to 3', sets to 4'

Low tide

Strong north cross wind

Sunny, windy and cold

Frustrating session



Expectations were low and the good south swell was over. Stormsurf’s predictions for the week had four to five foot wind swells for Monday dropping to zero feet on Wednesday and low pressure, south winds and rain moving in on Friday.

When I pulled in at Bolinas, Marty, Mary and Ray were already in the water and Hans was suiting up, a good sign.

“Hans, how does it look?” I asked.

“Small. Mary, Marty and Ray went to Seadrift,” Hans said. “I’m going to the Patch. The shape looks good, but it is small.”

From the Overlook, I saw an offshore breeze holding up a small peak at Seadrift. Three people were out about five to seven houses in. The Channel was out of the question. A strong out-going current was knocking down the waves. Hans was right the Patch looked good but small.

Back at the cars Yoshi pulled up. He’s been very regular lately. “How’s business?” I asked him. Yoshi owns Umi’s, a sushi restaurant on 4th Street in San Rafael.

“Up and down,” he said. He told me he was out yesterday. It was bigger and crowded. Yoshi was going out no matter what.

I decided to join the others at Seadrift. This was going to be an adventure. I hadn’t been over there in months. By now the wind was starting to turn onshore and it was cold. Lately I had been fighting this rash on my hands and decided not to irritate it by wearing gloves. My last two sessions I had gone out without gloves and didn't get too cold. A six-knot current flowed out of the lagoon and the wind was picking up. I paddled across the Channel and walked to the fifth house on the Seadrift side to join my friends.

The wind picked up as I entered the water. I saw Marty get a good left. Two to three-foot waves were peeling in both directions. Hans, who decided to come here instead of the Patch, connected on a long right wave. I mentioned to him that now that I’m here the wind arrived, just like it did last Friday. The waves were fun; the small curls held up. Marty mentioned that it was cold, I agreed and wished that I had worn my gloves. The wind picked up. I caught a couple of good ones. The shape of the bottom was causing these small walls to break to the left. After a few minutes, Mary went in. A few minutes later, Ray went in and soon after so did Hans. Only Marty and I remained out there.

The wind picked up. By now it was blowing hard and white caps were forming far at sea. My hands were getting numb. The waves picked up also. A set of ten four-footers came through. I caught the first one and coasted a long ways down a left wall before it closed out. Marty caught the second one and also went a long ways before the wall collapsed. We both were standing in chest high water and pushed our boards over the white water of the next wave, and the next, and the next for seven waves until the set had passed. We made it back out, sat there freezing before another set came through. The wind was now blowing harder and impacted our paddling into waves. Water spayed into my eyes as I paddled for a set wave, the wind picked up my board like a kite and blew me out of the wave. I paddled for several others, but the wind prevented me from catching them. I finally caught one, stumbled getting up because my legs were stiff from the cold and fell back into the water.

Marty agreed with me, it was time to go in. “One more wave,” the surfer’s jinx. Another set did not appear and we froze. By now I could not move my fingers. We paddled for a couple more waves and missed them, but the effort put us closer to shore. I caught a wave that broke on me and I belly-boarded it until my skeg hit sand. Marty was on a wave right behind me.

It was a long, cold walk and paddle back to the car. Hanging tight to our boards, pointing them into the wind, it spun us around several times. The current in the Channel had shifted direction and was now flowing at five knots into the lagoon. We paddled across. The water at the edge was warm, freezing in mid-channel and warm on the far side. On the other side, we again fought the cold wind to walk to the ramp. Back at the cars we both had difficulty pulling off our wetsuits due to numb hands. What a relief to get out of my wetsuit and booties and into warm clothes.

“Was it worth it?” I asked Marty.

“Yes, definitely,” he said. “I got some good waves when I first got out there.”

Spoken like a true surfer. I hesitated. I was so cold that I couldn’t agree. Next time I’m going to wear my gloves.

Monday, April 20, 2009

April 20, 2009 Monday



Bolinas

Channel

9:00 am to 10:30 am

2' to 3', occasional 4'

High dropping tide

No wind

Bright sunny day, heat-wave

Fun session



The weather has changed. We were into a typical Spring April with big NW winds. Last Wednesday and Thursday 30 MPH winds created havoc at the beaches: white caps for miles, Lawrence of Arabia sand dunes and nine-foot swells at six seconds. The winds stirred up the water, bringing the cold water from the bottom to the surface, dropping the water temperature to 46.8 degrees, the coldest I have ever heard of in Marin. Water temperature is always coldest in April due to the NW winds, and this year it set a record. A heat wave often follows the winds. High pressure rushing into low-pressure areas creates the winds and once the high pressure settles in temperatures go up. Today the heat wave begun: 75 to 80 degrees at the beach and 90 degrees inland.

Boards on top of cars greeted me when I arrived at Bolinas this morning, not a good sign. From the seawall I saw Marty, Hans and Matt walking on the beach near the Groin. Why weren’t they in the water? Though small I saw some tempting, glassy lefts at the Channel. The tide was high and no current was moving in or out of the lagoon. They stated that at first they were discourage, but after getting a first hand look they had decided to go out. Knee-high curls, glassy smooth, in a heat wave, of course one goes out.

Suiting up next to Matt I commented that I had not seen him for a long time. He had been out of action for two reasons: a pulled groin muscle and work. The groin kept him out of the water for weeks. As he put it, he’s older and things don’t heal as quickly as they used to. Also, he was now working three days a week, which for Matt was perfect. Matt does the computer drawings for a land surveying company. The recession has slowed things down, but fortunately in Marin home remodeling provides steady work. There are plenty of affluent ones who tear down houses to build new ones. Matt’s outfit does the site plans for the remodels. This was Matt’s first session in ten weeks and it was a good one. He connected on several rides and had not lost his form. Afterwards he claimed he over did it and felt pain in his groin; but it was a good pain. He was going home to ice it down and to soothe his soul with a six-pack of Russian River Ale that he just had purchased.

Mark the archaeologist showed up. He had just returned from a trip down south. For their 50th anniversary, Mark treated his parents to a weekend stay in a two-bedroom bungalow on a pier in Pacific Beach in San Diego. The location was super and the surf was up, good longboard waves for two days solid.

Our expectations were low, but the waves delivered; just clean two to three-foot swells that broke in both directions. The lefts, which broke in shallow water, were better than the rights, which broke in deeper water and died after take-off. The lefts hummed continuously in one direction for a long ways. I caught one good one; a three-foot set wave, the third in the set, thus all the others were inside having caught the first two waves. I paddled out to meet it, stroked into a cresting wall, got up early, positioned myself high in the wave, hooked the inside rail just under the lip of the curl, stepped to the center of the board and cruised though a fast section. The wave began building up again, I stepped to the ¾ point on the board, crouched down and hummed down a steep face until it broke in front of me and I dove into the on-coming white water. What a great ride.

After an hour and a half the tide dropped, the current started flowing out of the lagoon, the swells broke up into a series of small ripples and the wind picked up. It was time to go. All of us felt good about going out. It was a beautiful day and a good session. We vowed to return Wednesday and were looking forward to the three-foot, 17-second south swell that was predicted to arrive on Thursday.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

April 16, 2009 Thursday



Stinson Beach

Straight out from the restrooms

10:00 am to 10:30 am

1' to 2'

Low tide (0.6 ft)

Stiff onshore breeze

Bright and sunny with a cold breeze

Didn't go out



I was finishing my jog on the beach at Stinson when I noticed five people standing by the water’s edge staring out to sea. Something’s happening I thought to myself. I joined them. Not more than fifty yards offshore a pod of whales was cruising by. The above picture shows two of them. Note the white water of a breaking wave at the bottom of the frame that gives you an idea of how close they were to shore. It was difficult to tell the number of them, more than two but less than ten. They were circling, not just passing by. They would surface, submerge and re-surface heading in the opposite direction. A whale can stay under water for a long time and travel considerable distance before coming up for air, thus following them was difficult, which also why I couldn’t tell how many of them there were. In all my years of going to the beach this is the first time I have seen whales so close to shore. It’s common this time of year to see a pod of them far at sea traveling in one direction.

“What am I doing standing here,” I said to myself. “Get the camera dummy.” I ran up to my car, grabbed my camera, which already had the 300 mm lens attached, and ran back. The whales were still circling and the crowd on the beach had more than doubled. In a twenty-minute period I took over thirty shots. Using the “sports” feature of the camera, which clicks off five frames a second, I fired away every time I caught a glance of one of them. Nature’s animals don’t always cooperate for the photographer. I would hold the camera at the ready, scan the water and wait for one of them to surface. When I saw one, I would point the camera toward it and try to find them in the viewfinder, which is not automatic. By the time I focused on one and clicked off some shots the beast had submerged, leaving me with plenty of shots of choppy water. I did manage to get three decent shots. When I left, the whales were still circling and I have no idea why.

Earlier, when checking out the surf at Bolinas I ran into Captain Kip, one of the captains of the pilot boats that guide the big ships into San Francisco Bay. We watched tiny ripples coming in at the Groin and the strong out flowing current that was knocking down the waves at the Channel. Captain Kip was looking forward to surfing today, but it just wasn’t going to happen. I ask him if the recession had affected the boat traffic. I was expecting to hear that it had significantly dropped. Not so he assured me, a little maybe, but not much. San Francisco – Oakland is a major port, the third largest in the United States behind New York and Los Angeles with wide variety of traffic: oil tankers for the refineries, grain carriers, bulk carriers for rock and gravel, car carriers and hundreds of container ships. Traffic was down a little, but for the pilots, they were always busy. The next day Kip was traveling to a pilot’s conference in Vancouver. A Canadian pilot friend and surfer had invited Kip to surf one of the islands up there. The friend was going to provide everything: boards, wetsuits, transportation and knowledge of the local breaks. Kip was looking forward to this adventure.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

April 3, 2009 Friday



Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach Brewing Company

6:30 pm to 7:30 pm

The Rat Beach Story



It was 6:30 in the evening and I was in Manhattan Beach at the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company having my favorite, Rat Beach Red Ale, and a plate of fried calamari waiting for the arrival of Kate’s flight at LAX. Parking is a hassle at LA International, so our plan was Kate would call me on my cell phone when she landed and I would drive over to pick her up at baggage claim of Southwest Airlines. Manhattan Beach is only ten minutes from the airport. Good plan, it worked.

I love Rat Beach Red Ale. I first purchased it years ago because it was named after one of the beaches of my youth, Rat Beach, which is an actual place. It’s also excellent ale, thus I order it whenever I can. The Redondo Beach Brewing Company and their sister establishment the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company brew it along with several other excellent beers and ales. Only at these establishments can you purchase Rat Beach Red Ale. They don’t bottle it.

Feeling the urge to show off my wealth of local surf lore, I boldly asked the barkeep, “Do you want to hear the derivation of the name Rat Beach?”

“I have heard a couple,” he replied. “So let’s hear yours.”

“First of all,” I arrogantly proceeded. “Rat Beach is an actual place. It is located at the south end of Torrance Beach where the sand ends and the rocks of Palos Verdes begins.”

“That’s correct,” the barkeep replied. “Keep going.”

“There are two stories,” I continue. “One, in the early sixties at the base of the cliff there use to be considerable amount of trash and piles of dead seaweed, and rats lived there, thus the term Rat Beach.”

“I’ve heard that one,” the barkeep responded. “What’s the other one?”

“Well here’s the real story,” I continued. “In the late fifties and early sixties when the surf craze was first starting, a popular expression was RATSHIT. Anything that was worthless was termed RATSHIT. The term was so common the Kingston Trio cleverly slipped the word RATSHIT into one of their songs. To the surfers, the waves at the end of Torrance Beach where the sand turned to rocks were considered worthless, thus they named this spot, RATSHIT BEACH. The name caught on and a few years later it was shortened to Rat Beach.”

“Well that’s a new one,” the barkeep said. “I have never heard that one before.”

Here’s some more local surf lore. The Brewing Company also brews Dominator Wheat Beer, whose logo is a drawing of a cargo ship run aground on some large rocks. The owners certainly know their history of Palos Verdes. The drawing depicts an actual event that I remember. On March 13, 1961, the Greek freighter S.S. Dominator, carrying 1200 tons of wheat from Portland en route to Algiers, was heading to Long Beach to take on fuel when at 5:30 pm in a dense fog it ran aground on the Rocky Point reef within 100 yards of shore. Rocky Point is the north end of Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes and is the location of some exclusive homes. The rock reef and big winter swells form twenty-foot rideable waves. Despite all their efforts the coast guard and savage companies were unable to pull the boat off the reef. Constant pounding by the winds and high waves drove the 441-foot, 7176-ton ship further up onto the rocks. After two days they gave up, and the crew of thirty abandoned the ship. Forty years of the ocean’s relentless beating, the boat is gone. Nothing remains but a few rusted fragments on shore and metal chunks under water for divers to explore.

I can remember when it happened: fog horns blaring, police car sirens, TV crews scambling and hundreds of people standing on the cliff trying to get a glimpse of the stranded ship. The curiosity lasted for weeks, people came from all over Los Angeles to gaze at the Dominator, parking was impossible, local police had to direct traffic and the local homeowners went nuts due to the mass of people walking over their lawns. The impact lasted for months. The grain got wet, swelled and crack the hull open spilling tons of wheat into the water. The birds loved it and grain fed Lunada Bay lobsters became a delicacy. By September, six months later, the grain was rotting. A smell like decaying grass hung over the entire neighborhood and a billion flies were driving people crazy. Palos Verdes High was a block away and the smell and flies added to the agony of the boring classes. I can vividly remember during a fall heat wave going through two-a-day football practices, fighting the flies and the stench of the decaying wheat.

Now you know why “Dominator” is an appropriate name for a wheat beer. So if you are ever surfing in the South Bay of Los Angeles, stop in either the Redondo or Manhattan Beach Brewing Companies to enjoy a Rat Beach Red ale or Dominator wheat.