August 18, 2011 Thursday

Bolinas	Channel
9:30 am to 11:00 am	3' to 4', sets to 5'
Low upcoming tide	Stiff onshore wind
Overcast	Fun session

We were into several days of strong south swells. The weather guys on the local TV stations had mentioned due to "strong storms in the south" there would be a week of long-period south swells.

Yesterday the Internet sites reported a 3 ft south swell at 17 seconds and mild NW winds - perfect for Bolinas. But I had made plans with son Kevin to meet at Linda Mar for a before work surf session. Linda Mar is a north facing beach that breaks best at high tide with north swells - south swells don't get in there. Yesterday Pacifica was terrible: low tide, stiff onshore wind, crumbly two-foot walls and twenty surfers bunched together at the one and only peak. While I sat there waiting for Kevin, I kept thinking that Bolinas must be good. Kevin arrived and we immediately decided to head south to find better waves. Montara was the same story - blown out small walls. We headed further south to Kelly Ave in Half Moon Bay - it wasn't any better. We ended up having breakfast at a good family-run coffee bar "Get In Here" in downtown Half Moon Bay. An email from Marty that afternoon confirmed that Bolinas was great and I had missed it.

The south swell was still pumping this morning (3 ft at 16 seconds) and I wasn't going to miss it. The crew was in the water when I arrived at Bolinas. Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and DB the Safeway checker were out at the Patch. Eight surfers were bunched together at the Channel, including David who rides the Becker board, Marty and Matt. The waves looked good - three to four feet fast peeling lefts, maybe a little too fast due to the low tide. But I knew the waves would improve as the tide came up, thus I decided head to the Channel.

The south wind had picked up and had put a texture on the water when I paddled out but the waves still looked good. I saw Marty drop down a good wave, chatted briefly with Matt and then paddled out to the far peak to join David, who said hello and then took off on a fast three-foot peak. The waves were difficult to catch. The swells would jump up when they hit the shallow sand bar. On my first wave I came down a slow left that was gradually building, then it went vertical and sucked out in one foot of water and sent me flying.

Given my good session last Monday, my strategy was to take off when the swell was still flat, be up and going to drop over the edge when the waves jumped up. So I paddled out to the furthest peak at the Channel, sat outside and waited for the set waves. This strategy worked and I managed to connect on several fast-peeling waves.

One wave made my whole session. The crowd was an issue - ten of us were bunched together at one peak. I saw in the distance that a big set was approaching and I paddled out to meet it. I was thinking I would go for the third wave of the set. Let the crowd scratch and fight over the first two and leave the third one for me. I paddled further out, a four-foot wall was in front of me, and no one else had followed me out, and I found myself alone as the first wave of the set began to crest. I could tell by the drawing out of the water that this wave had some power. It also consisted of a wind swell on top of a ground swell and was definitely pointing left. "I'll go for it." I turned and dug hard. Everyone else was a good ten to twenty yards inside of me and was frantically paddling out. I stroked into the wind swell, that gave me a moment to get up and angle left before dropping over the edge of the ground swell. Down a vertical face I went, I drove under some white water sliding down from the top and climbed back into the swell. I stepped to the middle of the board, stretched out my lead foot (right foot) to gain some speed, shot through the first section, shifted my weight to my back foot to stall just an instant and then leaned into the curl to shoot through the second section. The curl kept unfolding in front of me and I worked up and down the face to stay in the wave. On and on I went until the wave finally closed out near the Groin pole.

While paddling out I watched Rob from Dogtown cut down a fast inside curl. Last Monday, I saw him do this twice - both were nice long rides with him firmly locked in the curls. Today Rob was on his new board, which he showed to me before we entered the water. He had just picked it up Tuesday, rode it yesterday at the Patch and was extremely pleased. It was a John Moore Mystic 9' 6" pintail with a beautiful yellow finish. He claimed that he could catch more waves with this board than on his old ten-foot board, and he was anxious to see how it performs in the curls at the Groin. Now he knows, and so do I; it performed beautifully in today's fast peeling waves.

After an hour and a half the waves were becoming flat due to the incoming tide, the crowd had swelled and the surf-campers were entering the water. Time to go, but what a fun session.