May 7, 2010 Friday

San Francisco	Fort Point
2:00 pm to 3:00 pm	6' to 8', sets way overhead
Low tide (0.9 ft at 1:30 pm)	Offshore wind
Sunny and breezy	Photo session

The surf was terrible this morning and thus by 10:30 am I was executing Plan B by having a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s in the Linda Mar Center in Pacifica. I was on my way to have lunch with old work companions in Chipotle’s in Foster City. Plan A was to surf this morning somewhere along the way before meeting with my buddies for lunch. But there was no surf. I stopped at Fort Cronkhite thinking that the new south swell might have arrived there. The swell was there but so was the wind, creating choppy, whitecap conditions. An occasional five-foot plus set would come through. Five guys were in the water including Nate, one of the Prooflab partners, who managed to score some incredible rides. Definitely shortboard conditions, not for 65-year-old longboarders, thus I decided to push on.

Pete the owner of the Livewater surf shop was in the parking lot trying to decide whether to work or to surf. Pete is also a contractor and after surveying the conditions decided to work and surf later. He told me yesterday it was big and rough here and showed me a three-inch slice in his thigh that he received from the fin of his own board. Ocean Beach was all white caps and wind swells. Nobody was out. Linda Mar was the same. A few people were in the water but the surf was horrible. That’s when I switched to Plan B and headed to Denny’s for breakfast.

After a great lunch with friends, I was heading home on the Great Highway around 2 pm. The sun was out, the wind was blowing, the waves were a churning mass of white and the tide was low. “The tide is really low, Fort Point might be breaking.” Thus instead of turning up to the bridge I continued down the hill to the Fort Point parking lot. To my surprise the waves were one to two feet overhead and ten guys were out.

Fort Point is a unique surf spot. The old historical fort sits on a small point of land under a massive arch of steel beams of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge engineers constructed the arch to preserve this 150-year-old brick building. The huge boulders that were brought in and placed around the point and the roadbed to prevent erosion form an indestructible-first class left point break. The water is deep thus the point only breaks at low tide. The lower the tide, the better the break. As the tide comes up the waves mush up against the boulders and eventually don’t break at all. The swells come through the Golden Gate, make a 90-degree turn at the point and break continuously along the contour of the roadbed. The point breaks best on big NW swells. On really big swells the waves break under the bridge near the foot of the south tower, continue into the bay and make the 90-degree turn at the point for incredibly long rides. Fort Point is a high adrenaline break: the currents in and out of the bay are always strong, the each wave peaks in a different location, the take-off zone is small thus all the surfers are crowded into a small area (localism is fierce here) and all the waves break close to the rocks.

Fort Point is also a surf photographer’s dream. The fort’s parking lot allows you to drive out to the point and stand within ten to twenty yards from the break. This afternoon the waves were sizeable and practically breaking on the roadbed. I was amazed at how close these guys were coming to the rocks. I watched one guy actually surf in front of the one large rock that sticks out in the impact zone. The ten surfers in the water had a mix of surf equipment: shortboards, longboards and two boogie boarders. I got out my camera and took some great shots. The sunlight was perfect and the strong west wind was offshore at Fort Point. I put my digital camera on the “sports” setting that fires five frames a second for action shots. In one hour, I reeled off a 120 pictures. At home I edited them down to the 47 bests ones and have posted them on the web. Click on the link below to check them out.

Fort Point May 7, 2010