March 30, 2011 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
10:15 am to 11:45 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High dropping tide	Offshore breeze to no wind
Bright warm sunny day	Fun session

The hot weather continued, forecast for today was 70 degrees with sunny conditions. I was ready for some real beach weather and was determined to get out into the water no matter what. Russ and Cazadero Cathy had just exited the water when I arrived. Per Russ the Patch was small, maybe two feet, but the waves had force, the rides were long and he had a good session.

“The waves were waist high,” said Cathy concurring with Russ and marking the wave height with her hand. “What’s that? Three feet?” She too commented on the strength of the waves and the length of the rides.

Earlier I was at Stinson Beach collecting a water sample for Surfrider’s water testing program. Creighton came running from the parking lot heading for the restroom; he had to make a pit stop on his way to work.

“Creighton, you’re here thus Bolinas must be flat.”

“No. I surfed Bolinas. The Channel was small but clean. I got fifteen waves (he counts waves). Not spectacular but fun. Marty just entered the water when I left.” And off he went.

At Stinson, one surfer was in the water far to the south in front of the lifeguard tower. The surf was rough, choppy, blown-out, and crumbly walls that stretched the length of the beach. It looked terrible. The surfer paddled north to position on the shoulder of an approaching wave. He quickly turned around, stroked into the wave, jumped up, cut left, and slapped the nose of his board off the lip of the wave as it broke. He rode the white water as the wave reformed on the inside, turned left into the shore break curl, and again slapped the nose off the lip as the wave broke on the sand.

“That must be Nate (one of the owners of the Proof Lab Surf Shop in Mill Valley),” I said to myself, goofy foot, short boarder, wild maneuvers and extreme cutbacks. The surfer exited the water and ran back to his truck. Yes, it was Nate.

“There’s a pretty good left out there.”

“No thanks. I’m heading to Bolinas to join the rest of the old longboarders.”

I paddled out at the Groin to join Marty, David who rides the Becker board and a couple of others. The waves were small and walled, but with luck we could connect on a good fast left shoulder. Under-laying ground swells stretched across the impact zone and mixed with wind swells. I quickly figured out not to waste my energy on the small waves that had no power and rapidly died. The set waves offered decent rides and as the morning progressed the waves got better. The waves peaked north of the Groin pole and peeled in a continuous direction, sometimes left, sometimes right depending on the direction of the swell. Most of the lefts closed out. But on one I connected with a fast shoulder that dropped me down several yards north of the Groin wall.

On strong high tides often a good right peak forms in front of the Groin pole. We call this peak “MALIBO” rights, because they peel right like the waves at Malibu Point. A four-foot wall approached and I could see that it had a right edge to it. I stroked into it, immediately cut right down the face as it broke in front of me. I hung on and drove under the white water back into the swell. The wave now connected with the Malibo right peak and I cruised down a fast right curl. I cut back, turned right again and cruised on until the wave collapsed in front of me. I had started fifteen yards north of the Groin pole and ended up thirty yards south of it.

From then on I went for the rights and caught several of them. I had to sit outside and wait several minutes for the next set. I’d swear the swell was getting bigger. But after one and a half hours my arms were spent. I missed several waves due to lack of arm strength, thus I knew it was time to go in. With the next wall, I went left and rode the white water to the shore. I was physically exhausted and glowed with the satisfaction of a fun session. Warm weather makes all the difference in the world.

Walking into town to purchase a coffee I ran into Pete the Bolinas local who used to work in the coffee stand. I have heard Pete practicing on his guitar several times. He is an accomplished blues and rock musician. Monday when I passed him on the street, he saw me and started playing Walk Don’t Run, the classic surf tune by the Ventures.

“Pete, I heard you playing Walk Don’t Run the other day, the old Ventures tune. Do you know who wrote it? It wasn’t the Ventures.”

“Dick Dale?”

“Nice try. No, it was Chet Adkins.”

“Chet Adkins! He could play anything. I will have to check that out.”

“This is one of the few music trivia facts that I know. My parents had a Chet Adkins LP that had Walk Don’t Run on it and that was years before the Ventures.”

Boy did I feel good, impressing someone with an obscure music fact. What a great ending to a beautiful morning: warm weather, fun waves and music trivia.