June 15, 2012 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
8:30 am to 10:15 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High tide (4 ft at 10:50 am)	Slight NW cross breeze
Sunny and warm - heat wave	Fun session

"Loren, I know how you can catch up on your blog," Jack the Dave Sweet team rider greeted me at the Seawall to check out the waves. "Just skip all those crappy days. You don't have to record all the bad days." After a two week lapse I posted April 11th yesterday and it was about a so - so day at the Patch. So now I was literally two months behind. But skip days? How can I? I'm the historian who is faithfully recording all the surf happenings on the north coast of Marin.

"You have already recorded 300 days. That's enough. From now on write up the good days only," Jack added.

"Jack, I just broke 340 postings."

"See, just write about the good days."

He has a good point, but I'm torn. My journal is a diary that I will re-read twenty years from now, thus it's important to note the boring sessions as well as the adventurous ones to capture an accurate picture of our lives in these days.

Suddenly a good four-foot wave broke un-ridden at the Groin. "Jack look at that left."

"It still needs more water. I'm going to give it another forty-five minutes, then it will get good."

Jack plans his surf sessions around the tides, and Bolinas is always best on an upcoming tide. The tidal surge adds one to two feet to the size of the waves, and this morning the tide was coming up.

"I don't want to waste the gas, thus I make sure the tide is right before I drive an hour to come here. Last week with minus low tides in the morning, I didn't bother coming out here." Jack lives up north -- an hour away.

After watching a couple more decent waves come through, Jack left to suit up and I walked to the Groin to take some pictures. The waves were the same as last Wednesday but a little bigger. Six surfers were in the water, and two of them were connecting on the fast right curls inside the Groin pole -- "Malibo" was breaking.

To our surprise Francine arrived. Two months ago she went in for major back surgery. She wore a back brace and said she had to come out to see the waves and to check-in with us. She still has another year to heal before returning to the water. She set up a beach chair on the sand, wrapped up in a blanket and soaked up the sights, sounds and smells of the beach.

DB the Safeway checker, Dexter the Bolinas local and Mark the archaeologist were in the line-up when I paddled out. Jack was further south going for the rights on the Seadrift side. Like Wednesday the waves jumped up, folded over quickly and died in the deep water in front of the Groin pole. The lagoon current had dug a deep groove that made a 90-degree turn at the end of the Groin wall. The waves came here to die. It was difficult to make the initial section, because the waves broke off too fast. They would begin to reform but once they hit the deep water they literally faded into nothing. Our best hope was the set waves that had some power to push beyond the dead zone.

Dexter connected on a good one. He sat way outside, just like Jacek the tattoo artist does. A four-foot peak jumped up in front of him. From the side I watched him stroke into the wave, jump up, crouch down, grab the outside rail, cut left and then disappear as I paddled over the wave. I could see the wake of his board continuing on just in front of the fast breaking curl. The wake nearly paralleled the face of the wave, meaning that Dexter was locked in. Then the whole wave came over at once and after a couple of seconds his board popped up - fins first and then Dexter surfaced.

Mark caught a similar wave. He paddled at an angle into a four-foot wall, jumped up, crouched down, grabbed the rail and hung on driving under the white water back into the swell. On he went at great speed until the wave hit the dead zone and melted away. The rights were working also and both Dexter and Mark caught a couple of good ones. Jack had disappeared to the south and after an hour he came paddling back.

"Jack, where were you?"

"Seadrift, all the way to the Sands. I caught one after another that went right up to the shore."

Bill from Berkeley was on his ski and had paddled from Seadrift to the Groin peak. He gave the same report. He too had connected on some long right walls.

After our session Jack commented that we hit it right -- from 8 to 10 am was when the tide was right and the waves were at their best. I had to agree with him. The waves were now smaller and mushier. As we discussed the changing conditions, the first surf camp of the summer arrived -- a caravan of two SUVs filled with kids and one pick-up truck loaded with soft-top boards. It was a good thing that we arrived early.

"Jack, are you coming out Monday?"

"Yes, but not until 10 am, that's when the tide turns." He knew the tides for all of next week and was planning his schedule accordingly. I only look at the tide log for tomorrow's tides.