September 1, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Channel - Seadrift side
9:00 am to 11:00 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High upcoming tide	No wind
Hot sunny day - heat wave	Fun session

Today turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I had no expectations when I walked down the ramp to check out the waves. Last week’s good south swell was gone and the normal pattern of small NW swells had returned. The Patch was completely flat; no one was out. Three surfers were at the Groin and six were on the far side of the Channel, including Mary, Susie who always wears sunglasses in the water, Ray the Petaluma fireman and stand-up surfers Frank and Russ.

Walking down the beach towards the Groin, a rideable left wave came through, then another and another. One surfer stroked into the last wave of the set; he swung left, crouched down with his back to the wave, held onto the outside rail as white water slapped his shoulder, sped back into the swell, cruised through a fast section, cut back and turned into a second fast section. That does it; I’m going.

With decent lefts at the Groin and fast rights on the Seadrift side of the Channel, where should I go? My strategy was to start at the Groin for some lefts and then work my way over to the rights. At the Groin I paddled for a couple of waves and missed them. The surfer who I saw earlier from the beach caught another fast left. I moved in where he was figuring on picking off some of the smaller ones. A set approached, the first wave was a wind swell that was cresting and pushing a small ground swell in front of it. I caught the wind swell, jumped up and pushed over the edge of the ground swell, cut left, hung high in the curl of a fast, steep two-foot wall. The steepness, speed and force of this small wave surprised me. I hummed down this curl until the wave sucked out in one foot of water. What a good start to my session.

At the end of my first right wave I paddled over to the Seadrift side of the peak to join Mary and Susie. Paddling out I watched Mary take off on a sizeable right wall. With her ten-foot Mystic board she can paddle into these waves early. Positioned high in curl, Mary trimmed down the face of a glassy four-foot wall until she straightened out when the wall collapsed in front of her.

Pete paddled out a few minutes later. Pete and I had shared some great waves at the Groin last Wednesday and Friday. Twenty minutes later Mary and Susie moved back to the Groin. For thirty minutes, Pete and I had the right peak to ourselves. At first no waves came and Pete and I sat there watching the crowd at the Groin in the distance catching waves. Then a set came and after that the waves just kept coming. Pete took off first and connected on a good long right. I drifted outside and stroked into a four-foot right wall. I dropped down the face, cut hard right, locked the rail under the lip of the curl, stood in the middle of the board and flew down this wall until it crashed in front of me. I turned around and another beautiful blue-green wall of water broke in front of me, and another and another. I guessed that ten beautiful unridden waves came through. Pete and I fought to get back outside. We waited a couple of minutes and here came the next set. We both connected on another long, fast right wall. We repeated this sequence of good rides at least five more times. Later a couple of other surfers joined us and after two hours I was spent and decided to call it a day.

Again, it was just another typical beautiful morning in Marin.