October 1, 2010 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
8:50 am to 10:30 am	Consistent 3' to 4', sets overhead
High dropping tide	NW cross breeze to hard wind
High fog to patchy sun	Good but frustrating session

I got up late this morning and didn’t have time to check the buoy reports on the Internet and thus I had no expectations on conditions. Breaking out of the forest, coming down the Panoramic Highway I got my first glimpse of the Bolinas – Stinson Bay. I was surprised by the amount of white water at the Channel; big V patterns covered the entrance to the lagoon and the Patch reef. A morning offshore breeze put a slight texture on the surface and sent plumes of spray arching off the peaks. It looked big. I later discovered the swells were the last remnants from tropical typhoon Malakas off the coast of Japan. The swells today registered five-foot at 17 seconds at 300 degrees.

Big well-groomed walls greeted me as I stood at the Groin with camera in hand. Ten surfers were out, including Marty, Doug, Ray the Petaluma fireman, David who rides the Becker board and Creighton. The waves were breaking hard and fast, and the crew in the water was having difficulty catching them. David connected on three fast ones during the ten minutes I stood there. That’s him in the above photo. Creighton and Doug caught good ones also. Classic surf magazine waves, I had to go out.

The crowd swelled to sixteen by the time I entered the water. Mark the archaeologist, Paul and Dexter had joined in. The waves were beautiful and the rides were fast and short. I was ready for a great session. I did sail down some big fast walls, thus my session was good but frustrating. I knew from watching the others from the shore that the waves were difficult to catch and that they quickly closed out. I tried for several waves and missed them. I moved around, first closer to the peak at the Channel and then way inside. Hard breaking waves mean only one person to a wave. Two or more on these waves would be dangerous. I kept an eye on the others making sure I didn’t take off in front of them. Finally a steep four-foot peak appeared. I stroked into it, but it took too long to get into it. By the time I stood up I could only drop to the bottom of the wave as it pitched over in a twenty-foot curtain of white water. I returned outside and tried for and missed several more. Another promising wall approached. It was feathering at the top when I turned to go for it. I stroked into it but I was late. My board and body hung at the top; I stood up on the tip of the tail-block, my board free fell, the nose speared the water and I went ass-first over the falls. The force of the wave drove me to the bottom and then sucked me into its washing machine of turbulence. It held me down. “Get to the surface,” was all I could think of. After what seemed like an eternity, but was in reality was only a few seconds, the wave released me. I had not been thrashed around like that in months.

I finally caught a good one. On my fourth wave, I took off on a four-foot peak as it was feathering ten feet down the line. I jumped up quickly and turned left before dropping down the face. At the bottom I leaned into the wave, climbed back up the swell, stepped to the middle of the board, positioned the rail three-fourths up the face of the wave and froze while screaming across a fast breaking left. I stalled an instant to drop into the shore break and stepped to the nose to cruise through the inside section. I forced the nose underwater as the wave collapse on the sand. I ended up a few feet from the Groin pole. What a great ride.

All of us were having our frustrations with the hard breaking waves. Mark told me that yesterday he had a great session here catching both lefts and rights and that he had high hopes for today. Since the waves were steep he came out on his short board, but he was having difficulty connecting. He went way inside and caught a few as the waves were breaking. After thirty minutes I saw Mark walking up the ramp with board in hand. Ten minutes later he paddled out on his trusty nine-foot Hobie. He had switched boards. The change helped. I saw him come down some sizeable walls at the far Channel peak.

Like me, Marty had a mixed session. He connected on some good fast curls and got clobbered on some of the bigger hard breaking walls. After his session, Doug told me the same story: a few great rides and some horrible wipeouts. David also said he had some great rides and got pounded on several others. But David did the best of all of us. He has a good sense of where to position himself; meaning he was good at finding the “edge,” that point in a hard breaking wave where it pauses a second before breaking hard again on the inside section. If one can catch the wave at the edge there is an extra moment to position the board high in the curl to shoot through the next section. David managed to do this on wave after wave.

On one wave I did the ultimate in surfing, I got barreled. That means the lip of the wave comes completely over surfer and he continues a short distance in the “tube” and comes out cleanly and continues on. To the observer, a sheet of water covers the rider so only his silhouette appears. I did it today – lying down. A well-formed left shape wave approached. As it was feathering at the top I stroked into it. But I was late and I didn’t want to lose time or momentum by standing up, so I remained lying down. I turned sharply left, the wave was steep and fast, the curl hallowed out, the lip pitched over my head and I saw the “oval.” I was inside the tube shooting toward an oval of light. It’s the same shape as the Surfrider Foundation logo. My momentum carried me through the tube and back out to the swell. I stalled briefly and turned into the shore break curl. I shot along the face, my outside rail dug in and I went tumbling holding onto the nose of my board, all this while lying down. It was a great ride.

The swell got bigger and the low tide and current coming out of the lagoon caused the waves to suck out. Four to five small swells would pile on top of each other and the out-flowing current would cause them to fold over with a crushing force. David, Mark, Paul and I paddled around and around trying to connect with a rideable wave without any luck. Some huge sets came through, definitely overhead that broke as continuous fifty-yard curtains of water. Time to go in. I caught one more and called it quits.

On shore wrapping my leash around my board I looked back at the peak. Paul dropped into a four-foot wall, swung left, crouched down in the middle of the board with his back to the wave and screamed across a fast peeling curl. It was a wave worthy of a photo in a surf magazine. I gave him the raise fist salute to acknowledge his good ride.