January 3, 2012 Tuesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:30 am to 11:00 am	3' to 4', sets overhead
Mid dropping tide	Slight offshore breeze to no wind
Low dense fog to high fog	Frustrating session

At 6:00 am the NOAA weather radio reported a big swell (10 ft at 16 seconds) and a dense fog alert for the entire Bay Area including the coast. From Mill Valley I drove through fog up to the Panoramic Highway and then broke out into bright sunshine over the mountain. On the other side a blanket of on-the-deck fog covered the entire Stinson-Bolinas bay from the shore to the horizon. I descended back into fog at the outskirts of Stinson and remained locked in it all the way to Brighton Ave in Bolinas.

From the seawall I could barely make out the few surfers who were at the Patch. The gray-white background prevented the automatic focus feature on my camera from functioning. But I could faintly see that the waves were big, bumpy and unclean, and I watched Mary connect on a long head-high left wave.

At the Groin, ten surfers were bunched together on the north edge of the Channel peak. I could barely see the waves, but they were strong, big, fast peeling lines. I aimed my camera at the Groin sign to obtain some contrast in color so that it could focus. Then I would swing slightly to the left and hope the camera could pick up a surfer coming down a wave. Luck was with me. As you can see in the above photo I captured a good shot of the size and shape of the waves. I also caught Nate the co-owner of the Proof Lab Surf Shop in Mill Valley locked in a head-high curl near the Groin wall. The Channel waves were shortboard classics - steep and fast walls - definitely not good for us old longboarders, thus I decided to head to the Patch to join Mary, Hank, Jaime the starving artist cartoonist, David who rides the Becker board and Ray the Petaluma fireman.

Again as I was entering the water the early birds were coming in. Mary exited while I was strapping on my leash. Ray had already gone in. Dexter paddled in after Mary. I chatted briefly with Jaime as he was working his way in. I watched Hank catch a wave and then continue paddling to shore. Only David the surf fanatic remained out there. The regulars did report that they had good sessions. Ray connected on several long powerful rides. Earlier at high tide, the backwash reflecting off the cliff put a large bump in the impact zone. While paddling out one backwash wave picked him up by surprise and pushed outside to the line-up. It was larger that the waves he rode in. Mary had a good session. She worked herself north to separate from the crowd and connected on several good left rides. Jaime was more cautious and hung on the south side of the impact zone to go for the rights. He was glad to be back in the water.

The waves were a frustrating combination of wind swells on top of ground swells with a sideways wind chop rippling through the path of the ground swells. The peaks were inconsistent and all over the place - to the north, then straight out front and then to the south. The wind swells caused the waves to jump up and break, but only on the top. One had to push over the edge of the ground swell to get into the waves. On my first wave, I stroked into one that was breaking, dropped down a steep face with considerable speed, the wave broke and then it died. I didn't have enough momentum to push into the reforming ground swell. Break and die, brake and die was the story of my session this morning. The waves had to be breaking for me to catch them. On one I dropped down a head-high peak with great speed, coasted out in front of the wave, my momentum died, and I glanced back to see a wall of waist-high white water bearing down on me. The foam hit the back of my board, my feet shot straight up and I plunged into the turbulence - typical of this morning's waves.

After an hour and a half of frustration, the cold was setting in. I caught a sizeable wave, took it in as far as I could and started paddling toward shore trying to catch another wave, which never happened. David followed me in a few minutes later. I was glad to be out of the cold water and hoped for a better day later this week.