May 24, 2013 Friday

Bolinas	Groin
9:40 am to 10:45 am	2’ to 4’, occasional head high
Mid upcoming tide	NW cross breeze
Bright sunny day	Fun session

There were no parking spaces when I pulled up at 8:30 am – a good sign that the waves were up. Frank and Creighton were toweling off after their sessions. I rolled down my window and shouted:

“Hey, it’s time for you dawn patrollers to get the flock out of here so we gentlemen can park. And how was it?”

“It was great,” Creighton said. “We were by ourselves and there was no wind.” I turned around and ended up half way to the 2-Mile Surf Shop before I found a place to park.

Jacek the tattoo artist was standing on the seawall when I came down the ramp. Fourteen people were out at the Patch and the waves looked good.

“Where are you going out?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like junk!”

Soon I understood why he said that. I stood and waited and waited for someone to catch a wave. The outside crowd would get into the infrequent set waves and they would quickly die. Only Hank and David who rides the Becker board caught decent waves on the inside. Within ten minutes Hank caught three clean, fast inside curls. That’s him in the above picture.

The lefts at the Groin looked good, no one was out there and that was where I headed. After I connected on a couple of good left curls the crowd began to show up. Here’s what the 2-Mile surf report said about them -

Clean and shapely left off the Groin bar that holds up for turns and runs.  Size is around thigh to almost waist high and it is spread out on the different bars with about 10 surfers up and riding.  

Today’s lefts reminded me of the two weeks of good south swells last summer that hit the Groin sand bars forming long, fast continuous curls. I lined up north of the Groin wall, straight out from the house that is hanging on the cliff. I would connect there and hum left all the way to the end of the retaining wall of the house on the south side of the ramp – the one with all the graffiti. Professor Steve and a local friend came out to join me. For a good forty minutes we had the peak to ourselves and shared the waves.

About 10:30 fifteen teenagers with sponge top boards invaded our peak. What was this? Surf camp? So soon? Later Drew at 2-Mile told me that the eight grade marine biology class at Marin Country Day School was having its end of year party. That did it. I was getting tire; one more wave and I would be out of there. As usual, it took awhile for that one last wave to arrive. Finally a set came through and there was a perfectly formed left wall coming right at me. I turned and stroked into it. I dropped down a shoulder high face, cut left at the bottom, climbed back into the middle of the swell, crouched down mid-board and ploughed right through the middle of the marine biology class. Fortunately, my path was clear, only one girl had to dive out of my way. I screamed across that wall on the edge between control and out of control, drove my board right up to shore and dove off into the white water as the wave broke on the sand.

I was lucky I didn’t hit anyone, but it was my best ride of the morning, in a morning filled with many good rides.