October 20, 2010 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
10:00 am to 11:30 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High dropping tide	SE cross breeze to no wind
Overcast with high fog	Fun session

This was my first session since my accident last Monday when I hit my shoulder and head on a rock at the Patch. I was ending a ride over shallow water and stepped forward to push into a reforming ripple. We’re talking small here, an inside one-foot swell. The nose went down and I tumbled over the front of the board. A thought instantly flashed into my mind, never fall over the front of your board, always fall back into the wave. Then: BOOM – BOOM! My shoulder and then my head hit a submerged rock. I hit hard and was stunned.

I popped up. Fearing a concussion, I quickly ran through a series of questions. What day is it? Monday. Where are you? At the Patch in Bolinas. What’s the date? October 18th. What time is it? Eleven AM.

I ran my hand over my head checking for blood. Fortunately, there was no blood. My shoulder and arm were throbbing. I lifted my arm and rotated it. Everything moved properly. I should immediately go in and ice down my shoulder to prevent swelling. But what better way to ice it down than to stay in the cold water. For the next twenty minutes I treaded water, slowly paddled around and caught three more waves before going in. Back at the car I asked Robert the Larkspur carpenter to check me out.

“Oh, there’s swelling behind your ear and a little blood. But it’s nothing to worry about, you’ll be ok.”

Easy for him to say, of course I worried about it and so did my wife Kate. By the next morning the swelling had gone down. I went for a long walk and then sat in the spa at the Mill Valley Rec Center. Fifteen minutes of blasting hot water at my shoulder did it a world of good.

So I was apprehensive about going out this morning. I immediately ruled out the Patch. No more rocks for me, even though the waves looked good and six people were out, including Mary, Jaime the starving cartoonist and the Robinsons, Martha and Jim. I walked down to the Groin to take some pictures. From a photographer’s perspective conditions were good: glass smooth surface, and a high tide that formed a peak near the Groin wall close to shore. Several of the regulars were there: Marty, David who rides the Becker board, Ray the Petaluma fireman, Novato Pete, and Susan who always wears sunglasses in the water. Standing there I decided to go out. My friends were there, the waves looked like fun, I could use some exercise and there were no rocks.

However while suiting up, most of my friends got out of the water. Ray came up board in hand claiming the rights on the Seadrift side were good but now the tide was too high. The Robinsons got out, packed up and waved as they drove off. Mary came up saying there were still plenty of good waves at the Patch. Marty returned reporting it was great an hour ago and that due to the tide the waves had died. Jaime came up the ramp and razzed me that we never surf together because I always arrive so late.

“Hey, I was collecting water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program.”

“Ok, you’re excused.”

All my apprehension instantly disappeared once I entered the water. I have experienced this several times before. Feeling tired, sore, or fighting a cold, all this melts away once I’m in the water and stroking out to the line up. My shoulders and arms felt great, and I had no difficulty paddling.

The waves at the far peak were difficult to catch. They had to be breaking on you to get into them. But when you did catch one, the glassy surface, the slight offshore breeze resulted in a smooth, classic longboard ride. Paddling out I got a great view of David coming down a four-foot fast peeling left. As I pushed over the top of the wave I glanced down at David. He was standing mid-board, leaning into the wave with the lip of curl pitching over his right shoulder. Once over the wave I looked back to see him going on and on with his head just in front of the breaking curl, and on he went until the wave died near the Groin wall. What a great ride.

After forty-five minutes David and I moved inside close to the Groin. What a good move. We both connected with several well-shaped fast small left waves. On one I was locked into a steep small curl heading straight for the Groin Pole. I thought I was going to hit it. I kicked out just in time and ended up five feet from the Pole.

The tide had shifted and the ebb flow was pouring out of the lagoon forming a rippling river through the impact zone. The strong current pushed us north of the Groin and the waves were dying. Time to go in. I connected with one more fast curl, ended up near the north side of the wall, and decided to call it a day.

The exercise, the good rides and the cold water was just what I needed to get my body going and to break out of the doldrums of Monday’s accident.