June 16, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Channel
8:00 am to 9:30 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
Low outgoing tide	No wind
Bright and sunny	Fun session

The left peak returned to the Channel this morning. For the past three months there was no peak at the Groin or the Channel. The storms had moved in tons of sand and had planed off the bottom causing every wave from six inches to ten feet to break in a solid wall of water. The good left peak, which we had counted on for years, was formed by a dome of sand deposited at the mouth of the lagoon by the tidal action of the currents. During Monday’s minus low tide, Jack and I observed a finger of sand forming in front of the Groin pole and extending out for twenty yards. With this morning’s higher tide our old favorite left peak was back and I managed to connect on several of good ones.

“Loren you should get yourself a stand-up board for days like this when it’s flat,” Russ sarcastically greeted me at 7:30 am when I arrived. “Then you would have something to do. That’s what I plan to do.”

Surf prospects on the Internet were not good; 11 ft NW swell at 10 seconds with a 1.4 ft south swell at 14 seconds and 20 knot NW winds, gusts to 24 and water temperature at 50 degrees. “Big wind swell, a ripple of south, cold water and strong winds. It doesn’t look good. But I will check it out any way.”

Russ and I were discouraged standing on the seawall checking out the waves. The tide was super low, all the rocks of the Patch reef were exposed and small gutless two foot waves were breaking beyond the outside rock. One surfer was out between the Groin and the Channel, the surface was flat and it looked like he was just paddling around. Then a small wave came through.

“Russ, look that one is rideable.” We watched it peel continuously to the left. A second one approached, the surfer stroked into it, turned left down a nicely formed wall and trimmed across the face for a long ways. Our interest picked up. A third wave came through and the surfer managed to catch the fourth one of the set. Two more waves came in after that. A set of six good waves had just appeared out of nowhere.

“That’s it, I’m going,” Russ announced.

“I’ll join you.”

Russ recently took up stand-up surfing and was still getting used to paddling, balancing and catching waves. He entered the water at the base of the ramp, paddled down to the Channel, turned north and paddled all the way to the Patch. After a half hour I saw this speck of a surfer in the distance riding a wave at the Patch with a paddle in his hand. That must be Russ I thought. After our session he mentioned that he caught ten small waves and was finally getting the hang of it, thus for him it was a good session.

I entered the water at the Groin and realized that the surfer we had been watching was Creighton. I paddled out to join him. He told me that he arrived at 6:30 am, was discouraged but decided to go out anyway. To his surprise the waves picked up and he connected on four or five long fast lefts. Of course that was an hour ago and by now the waves have died down, just my luck.

First wave I caught had some force behind it. I dropped down the face, trimmed left before the wave closed out in front of me. Same thing happened on my second wave. My third wave was a right. I climbed high in the curl, cruised through a short section, the wave built up again and I shot through another fast section. I hadn’t caught a wave like that in weeks. Now I was into it. I caught one good left and then another. The good waves were a combination of little wind swells that combine together on top of a south ground swell. I would catch the wind swell and push my weight forward to drop into the ground swell. The shape of the bottom forced all the waves to break to the left. On my best wave, I was well positioned for a four-foot set wave. I took off late, turned quickly into a steep face, climbed to the top of the curl, stepped to the middle of the board and stood there. The wave continuously unfolded in front of me while I cruised along until it closed out in one foot of water near the shore. That’s the Bolinas of old that I remember so well.

Four of us were in the water, Creighton and I and two others, who stayed ten to twenty yard away from us. Thus for an hour Creighton and I had this break to ourselves.

One of the others went in. “Did that guy go in already?” Creighton commented. “He wasn’t out very long.”

“He must have to go to work.”

“Yeah, so do I. One more good one and I’ll go in.” When Creighton said that I could feel it in my bones, the old “just one more wave” game. A four-foot set wave came through, I paddled over it and out of the corner of my eye I saw Creighton drop down the face. I looked for him expecting to wave good-bye. But he was paddling out again.

“That was too good. I have to get another one.” And he caught another four-foot set wave, and another and another. Five waves later Creighton finally gave me a wave and called it quits.

Now I had the break all to myself. I looked around, what a beautiful morning, warm bright sunshine, no wind and every five minutes a nice four-foot wave would come through. If the water wasn’t so damn cold I could stay out here all day.