June 2, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
10:30 am to 12 noon	2' to 3', sets to 4'
Low tide (-0.5 ft)	NW cross breeze
Overcast with a low cloud cover	Fun session

Meet Chris from Orange County in Southern California, that’s him in the above photo. He is living every young man’s dream: Easy Rider and Surf Safari. Check out his rig: a big freeway cruising motorcycle with all the amenities pulling a trailer that carries two longboards. He rode up from SoCal for the Santa Cruz Longboard Union (SCLU) Memorial Day Classic, an annual longboard surf contest, in which Chris made the semi-finals. After the contest he continued further north to visit his brother and to cruise over to Bolinas because loves to surf here. He likes the mellow waves at the Patch and the good vibes of the its surfers.

I prodded him for more details. On his trailer were two Dewey Weber longboards and he was wearing a Dewey Weber tee shirt. He told me he rides for the Weber team. I mentioned that I had met Dewey once when I was a kid. Chris pulled out his wallet and handed me Shea Weber’s business card. Shea is Dewey’s son and now runs the business. Chris did not know Woody, our local superstar who is also on the Weber team.

He showed me his boards. The bigger one was his favorite and had a glassed on 13” single fin. The smaller one was a tri-fin. He had to use this board for the contest at Streamers Lane because the big fin on the other board was not a “kelp-fin,” meaning it protruded too deep in the water to maneuver the kelp beds in Santa Cruz. He unlocked the straps around the boards to show me his big board. What a classic: 9’ 0’ in length, 24 inches wide (which is w-i-d-e), six-inch square tail, 1 ½ inch balsa wood stringer and an elegant gold pin-striped pattern on the top. The top was domed and tapered down to thin rails, similar to my 9’ 2” Haut. It was a beautiful board.

Chris’ rig drew a crowd. Ray the Petaluma fireman joined us as did a local Bolinas resident who happened by. This gentleman was familiar with bikes and asked several motorcycle questions. Chris’ vehicle was built for comfort: thick cushy driver’s seat, a small leather passenger seat, a large wrap-around windshield, stereo speakers, and a small built in two-way radio to communicate with the passenger when cruising on the road. And it also had heated handgrips. I had never heard of such a thing. The Bolinas resident sternly told me that heated handgrips are an important feature. In cold weather, the rider’s hands can freeze and become numb; something we Marin surfers can relate to. Chris bought the bike used and it now has over 200,000 miles, which for a well-made cruising machine is nothing.

“So what is in the trailer?” Ray gestured to the compact trailer connected to the bike.

“A bed and a tent. Do you want to see it?”

And with that and within two seconds, Chris grabbed a handle in the front of the trailer, pulled on it, and the top swung up and out and rested on the ground doubling the length of the trailer. This process automatically unfolded a tent, a tent tall enough for the 6’ 2” Chris to stand up in. In the front half of the tent was a bed on a platform with storage space underneath. Can you imagine that? In an instant the tent is ready; no tent pole to fuss with, no stakes to drive into the ground and no ropes to mess with.

We all “oooohed” in amazement. What a well designed set up. And within two seconds, Chris had it all taken down and packed away.

Chris joined us out in the water at the Patch on his big fin board. There was nothing special about the waves: well shaped, difficult to catch, long slow riding waves. Ten people were in the water, three of them on standup boards. The standup guys dominated the break because they could catch the waves thirty yards outside of the rest of us when the swells were flat. I had difficulty pushing into the waves, but not Chris. He caught everything he tried for. Several times he hung five on flat Patch curls. I didn’t think that it was physically possible to walk the nose on Patch waves, but Chris could do it. For an hour and a half we all enjoyed sharing waves at the Patch peak.

As usual, it was another beautiful and interesting morning in Marin.