April 22, 2013 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:40 am to 11:15 am	2’ to 3’, occasional ‘4
High dropping tide (4.6 ft at 9:30)	No wind
Sunny and hot – heat wave	Fun session

A Heat Wave had engulfed the Bay Area. The big winds of last week had subsided and a high-pressure front had settled in. The Weather Channel predicted a high of 83 degrees for Bolinas at 3 pm with light NE winds. Eighty-three degrees in Bolinas! That’s unheard of. Stormsurf forecasted a local north wind swell of 5 ft at 9 seconds from 310 degrees, combined with a fading 2 ft south swell at 14 seconds from 175 degrees and a water temperature of 49 degrees. I knew the north swell was too north to reach into Bolinas, but a two-foot south swell could result in decent waves at the Patch. I didn’t surf at all last week due to the lack of swell and the big winds, which were normal for this time of year. Thus I was determined to go out day.

I stopped at Stinson to check the waves since it was high tide and the swell was small. I watched the lone surfer out there connect on a good shoulder-high wave and thought if Bolinas was flat I would return to Stinson.

As I pulled up to the parking area at Bolinas, the cars of several of the usual suspects were there: David who rides the Becker board, Mary, Hank, DB the Safeway checker, Frank the stand-up guy, Jacek the tattoo artist and Jack the Dave Sweet team rider. DB was coming up the ramp after her session with Jacek who had just checked out the waves. DB said it was fun and Jacek confirmed there was some small waves at the Patch and that he was suiting up to go out. Six surfers were out at the Patch as I walked down there to take some photos. The long, high quality rights impressed me – small, yes, but fun waves. Above is Mary and Hank sharing one of the fun ones.

When I first got out there, I set up on the north side of the peak to go for the lefts. I caught few and they were ok. Then I watched Jacek get one of his classic long rides; he took-off late, quickly cut right, glided under some white water sliding down in front of him, climbed back to the top of the swell, stepped to the nose and cruised all the way to the shore break. After seeing that I too drifted south to go for the rights, which were clearly better than the lefts. For the next hour I connected on one small clean right wave after another until I was thoroughly exhausted.

“Jacek how was your trip to San Diego? Did you get any waves?” Two weeks ago he told me about his planned trip down south to visit friends and to surf every day. Jacek lived in San Diego for several years before moving up here.

“I surfed three and a half hours with a friend at Cardiff by the Sea and then drove to Swami’s and went out there for another two hours,” he said with a big smile on his face. The big winds of last week blew out all the spots in San Diego, so he crammed a week’s worth of surfing into one day. Being several hours behind schedule, he jumped in the car and drove north on 101. He didn’t stop at VG’s Donuts as I had suggested. North of Los Angeles he cut down one of the canyons to check out Malibu. Now we’re talking about late afternoon. “I couldn’t believe it, hardly anyone was out. I went out and had a great time. It was my first time surfing Malibu. Afterwards I thought I was only an hour from Rincon and was tempted to surf in one day the three great point breaks of California – Swami’s, Malibu and Rincon.” But the late hour, reason and exhaustion convinced him to push on home.

“Rob, we have Malibu conditions this morning,” I greeted Rob, Mr. Malibu, as he paddled out at 10:30.

“Great,” he said and immediately turned his Pearson Arrow nose rider around and with two strokes glided into a nice three-foot glassy right wave. Rob sits inside and catches the smaller waves until the sets come, then he paddles out to meet them. He catches twice as many waves as I do. Skill in surfing is determined not by the number of hours in the water, but rather by the number of waves ridden, and thus Rob is honing his skills twice as fast as the rest of us. He agreed with me that the waves were good. Better than yesterday.

“So was it crowded yesterday?” I asked, thinking that a Sunday during a heat wave would results in wall-to-wall surfers in the water.

“There were hundreds of cars. They closed the parking lot at Stinson. The beach was crowded but not in the water. I came about three-thirty and there weren’t too many people out. I went down to the Groin and connected on several good lefts.”

This morning was a classic summer day for me. Hot weather, no wind, glassy surface, well-formed rights peeling at the Patch and only four surfers on the peak. It doesn’t get any better than this.