June 8, 2011 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:50 am to 11:20 am	3' to 4', sets to 6'
Low dropping tide	Onshore breeze
High overcast	Fun session

I had no excuse this morning, we weren’t collecting water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program because the program was shut down for the summer, but still I didn’t get into the water until 9:50 am. I’m always amazed how long it takes me to make it out to the line-up. Yesterday I waited for Kate to finish a morning phone call before we headed to Pete’s in Mill Valley, which is our normal routine. Even with that delay I was in the water at 8:45. This morning we made it to Pete’s at the usual hour. I hung out with local friends John and Matt and after we settled the Giants line-up strategy I headed to the beach at eight and arrived at Bolinas at eight-thirty. Great I should be in the water at nine. No way, I had to shoot the breeze with Jacek the tattoo artist, Dan, Mary and Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and take some photos for the Journal.

Twice I had locked up the car and had to return. First Mary exited the water and I went back to my car to retrieve the surf DVD that I borrowed from her a couple of weeks ago. Next Jacek handed me the lens cap to the 400 mm lens that he loaned to me. Now that I’m a senior citizen, I have to take care of the little things right away or I will forget them. So I immediately returned to my car to safely tuck the lens cap into my camera bag.

“I hope you have a good story for that one.” Dan had to tell me how he broke his nose yesterday at Cronkhite.

“No I don’t. I kooked the wave. I had just completed a good wave and then went for a wave I never should had gone for. The wave dumped me, threw me down underwater and my board hit me on the nose. Now I know why you should always put your hands in front of your face under water. I had this longboard because my 6’ 11” Cronkhite board is in San Diego, but I will get it back this weekend.”

“Dan what are you doing going to Cronkhite? You’re too old for those hard pounding waves. You should be out here with the rest of the old guys.” He agreed.

When I returned the DVD to Mary, Jaime grabbed it. He wanted to see it. We started chatting about music. I have been telling him for months about my extensive collection of surf music. I keep hounding him to dedicate one of his weekly radio shows to surf music. Every Tuesday night from 8:30 to 10:30 pm, Jaime broadcasts two hours of rock, blues and jazz on the West Marin radio station KWMR. (I highly recommend his show, check it out). Jaime has collected music since he was a kid, owned a music store and has traveled the country playing lead guitar for various blues bands, thus he knows his stuff.

“Doug how about those Giants?” Doug is such a huge Giants fan he travels to Arizona every March to watch a few spring training games.

“Loren, I don’t know why I bother going. I was there last night and they lost again. Every time I go to a game, they tank.” I don’t go to many Giants games but I did go a couple of weeks ago to see them lose to the Florida Marlins one to nothing. While exiting the stadium I ran into Doug.

“Sanchez was terrible last night. He pitched five innings and walked ten batters. He stunk.” The Giants lost two to one to the Nationals.

After taking photos, shooting the breeze and suiting up, it was nine-fifty when I headed out to the Patch. Remnants of the south swell were still there and the swell picked up while I was in the water. My arms were tired from yesterday’s session. I was feeling it by the time I reached the line-up, some twenty yards beyond the outside rock, and I had to keep paddling through the impact zone to get back out. The impact zone was a mile wide today and there was no way of paddling around it. Despite that, using the outside rock as my marker I managed to connect on a few long lefts.

Marty caught a good one when I first paddled out. He dropped down a head-high wall, went under white water sliding down from the top of the wave, climbed back into the swell, passed within ten feet of the outside rock and cruised on and on until the wave died on the inside. Matt caught a good one. He stroked into a set wave as I was paddling back out north of him. He cut right down a head-high wall. When the wave slowed down he cut back left and crouched down. I thought he was going to swing right again. No, he kept coming left and the wave built up in front of him. He soon passed by the rock and behind me. The next time I saw him he was starting the long paddle back out, way on inside and a good two hundred yards to the north. Wine Country Pete caught a good one on his ten-foot bright yellow longboard. We were sitting together on the outside when a sizeable wave came through. Pete stroked into as it was breaking while I paddled over it. I looked back and saw only his head streaking along in front of the breaking curl. The next time I saw him he was making the long paddle back way on the inside and north of the take off point.

After an hour and a half I was spent and worked my way in. Again I had achieved that glow of satisfaction from vigorous exercise, fun waves and good friends.