September 20, 2010 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
8:50 am to 11:00 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High upcoming tide	No wind
Low fog to patchy sun	Good session

Bolinas at its Best

For one hour, David who rides the Becker board, Walt on his stand-up board and I had the Groin peak to ourselves. All the conditions had come together: remnants of last week’s south swell (3 ft at 14 seconds), a pulse of a small swell from the Gulf of Alaska (3 ft at 15 seconds), a low hanging fog that was holding the wind down, super glassy surface, consistent three foot fast left peeling waves and only three of us on the peak.

The low thick fog made seeing the waves difficult. The grayness of the fog blended with the grayness of the water. Only when the waves were cresting could we see them and get in position to catch them. I learned quickly that the sets appeared as large solid black lines coming through the fog. Due to the fog I couldn’t see the cliff or the houses at the mouth of the lagoon, thus when a solid black line appeared I would paddle out and position myself based on the first wave of the set and pick off one of the following waves.

Good move. A black line appeared through the fog, I paddled out and north to meet the incoming set. I took off late on the second wave, hung at the top, turned sharply left, the wave was lining up in front of me, the lip was feathering and about to come over, I stepped to the middle of the board, crouched down and cruised through the initial section. The wave continued to set up; I stepped closer to the nose, stood erect and glided through a second section. The wave continued to setting up, I inched closer to the nose and by shifting my weight between my leading right foot and back left foot I worked the board up and down the face and on and on I went until it finally sucked out and collapsed within a few feet of the Groin pole. What a great ride.

I turned around and standing in waist-high water I watched Walt on a good one. He was locked mid-swell of a four-foot wave, mid-board; he crouched down with his paddle waving behind him like a flag and hummed down a wave identical to mine. He shot by me and cruised on and on finally popping over the top when the wave collapsed on shore. Another great ride. Walt had a great session. He recently had taken up stand-up surfing and was quickly getting the hang of it. I watched him come down three more fast lefts like the first one. These were steep fast curls that were difficult to ride on a large stand-up board, but Walt handled it with aplomb.

In this hour I caught another six good left curls. After one I looked around and here came David planted perfectly a fast left curl. David caught a ton of waves. Every time I looked towards shore there was David near the Groin pole paddling back out after another long ride. One time David and I took off on the same wave. I was at the peak taking off late and David was ten yards north taking off on the shoulder. The wave had some speed and within a couple of seconds I caught up to him. We were both shooting down a steep curl. I came up right behind and below him. I locked the inside rail of my board within a foot below his. The wave continued on, David saw how close I was and pulled out even though he didn’t have to and I traveled on for another twenty yards.

David has the surf passion. He told me he had entered the water at 7:30, and at 11:30 after I had dried off and changed into my street clothes David finally walked up the ramp after four hours in the water. I could never do that.

Walt snapped a couple photos of David and I in the water with his Go-Pro water-proof digit camera. He told us that he was onto a new personal project of taking pictures of the 50 and 60-year-old surfers. Walt is a professional photographer and a friend had suggested that he take up a personal project just for the fun of it, something to expand his horizon. So he decided to document and photograph the story of the older surfers. He promised to let us see the results when he had something that meets his professional standards.

My last wave was a good one. I had been out for two hours and was thinking I would take one more and go in. By now six more surfers had moved in on our peak, the fog had lifted, the sun was out and I was jockeying around for position. I saw a set coming and paddled out while the others stayed put. A powerful wall was approaching, the others were inside and I was in position. I turned, stroked into it, dropped to the bottom and turned left into a head-high wall. The wave broke over the front of my board, I stood firm, leaned into the wave and pushed towards open swell but didn’t quite make it. For the rest of the wave I sped across the bottom standing erect watching the lip of the wave curl over the front of my board. I froze and stood at the bottom of the wave one step from the tail block screaming along for several yards. The wave finally closed out in front of me, I straightened out and milked it all the way to the shore. What a good ending to a good session.