November 15, 2010 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
9:00 am to 10:15 am	1' to 2', sets to 3'
High outgoing tide	Strong offshore wind
Bright sunny day, heat wave	So - so session

Changing weather and strong currents were today’s themes. Since last Wednesday high pressure had settled in, locking in a layer of warm air and creating offshore winds. The high pressure was beginning to break up and low pressure and cold air will begin moving in tomorrow. The shift from high to low pressure has produced a wind gradient of strong north winds that are offshore at the south-facing Bolinas. Today would be the last day of the heat wave. The Internet surf data was mediocre: 7 ft north swell at 10 seconds from 315 degrees combined with a one-foot south swell at 12 seconds from 195 degrees, strong north winds and a high dropping tide.

Two groups were out at the mouth of the lagoon this morning. Six surfers were straight out from the Groin, including Marty, Susan who always wears sunglasses in the water and Novato Pete. The other group was over at Seadrift going for the rights. The Seadrift side looked good, the offshore wind was holding up the waves as the surfers cruised down long fast peeling rights. Over there were David who rides the Becker board, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider and stand-up surfers Frank and Russ. That’s David on a set wave in the above photo.

“Jaime how was it?” Jaime had just exited the water at the Groin.

“It was fun. I got some good rights over on the Seadrift side. Long waits between sets followed by several good waves. The wind has picked up and the current has started.”

Because the weather was so good I had to go out. Paddling out to the Groin I saw Marty drop down a well-formed small left wave. The waves were beautiful, deep blue water, silvery sun reflection on nicely shaped peaks that were held up by the offshore wind causing arches of spray to come off the tops. Despite the beauty, the waves were weak. On my first wave, I paddled towards the peak, stroked into the wave, faded right, swung around left and dropped down a three-foot face. At the bottom, my momentum died, the wave broke in front of me and I didn’t have the speed to push back into the swell. The wave broke into a “dead-zone”, a patch of deeper water that caused the wave to peter-out. Only the bigger set waves had enough force to enable us to cross the dead-zone.

The ebb-flow out of the lagoon was deceptively strong. Marty, Susan, Pete and I sat outside quietly chatting while waiting for the next set that never came. We didn’t realize that we were moving. I took a quick check of the shore. We had started out south of the Groin pole and in a few minutes we were north of the pole and further out. I started paddling in and to the south. My strategy for dealing with current is to stand in the water. While paddling in I would stop and test the depth of the water. I made five such depth tests before reaching a point where the water was chest deep and I could stand there. The current was strong; I could feel it pushing against my body and my feet. My strategy worked. I would stand in the water, watch for a set and then paddle for position when the set arrived. The ebb current started slow and continued building momentum. By the end of our session, a river was raging through the impact zone. The current knocked down the waves and created an annoying ripple on the surface.

Despite all of this, Marty, Susan, Pete and I managed to catch a couple of decent waves. After one ride I turned to paddle back out and here came Marty on a good wave. He managed to cross the dead zone and connect with the shore break. This had him heading straight for the Groin pole. He bailed out five feet in front of the wall and the surge of the wave carried his board into the pole. “Bonk!” It crashed into the pole with some force. Fortunately no damage occurred.

After our session, Marty and I chatted with Yaschik, the excellent surfer who always goes way outside and sits cross-legged on his board. We were admiring his shortboard. It was well made, solid and had a large single fin glassed into the board. Nowadays most shortboards have three small fins that are removable. Yaschik mentioned the shaper who we didn’t know, but is well known in the shortboard world. Marty told me that Yaschik owns over sixty surfboards. He confirmed that. Most are shortboards with a few classic longboards, such as a 1963 Hansen and two Donald Takaymas in mint condition.

“Why do you have sixty boards?” I asked. “For collection to display?”

“No to ride them. But I do need to sell some of them.”

From what he described they are all specialty boards, classics, and works of art; not your run of the mill surfboards. So we’ll keep an eye out for when and where he puts some of them up for sale.