January 20, 2014 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:50 am to 11:10 am	3' to 5', outside sets overhead
Mid upcoming tide	Slight onshore breeze
Warm and sunny	Fun session

Martin Luther King Holiday

Coming in was an adventure today. After an hour I began to work my way in. The tide had come up and set waves were pounding the north seawall. I caught white water of a big wave that propelled me to shore, near the trunk of the large tree that came down in 1997 during the El Nino winter. As water pulled away from the wall, sand appeared, thus I thought I could make it running in front of the wall instead of going over the top and down the crude wood rungs of the ladder on the south side. I started to run in front of the wall, a surfer was coming in the other direction and he was buried by an incoming wave. I turned around, went back and waited for a lull. Then I took off again and didn't make it. A big wave came in, crashed against the wall, shooting water several feet in the air and caused three feet of backwash to rush back out to sea taking me with it. Fortunately I still had my leash on. I grabbed the nose of my board and dove into the white water of the next incoming wave, jumped on the board and paddled like mad to get outside of the next wave. I paddled around the rest of the wall and came in at the Playpen, (a patch of beach between the two seawalls). That was more adventure than I needed.

I went surfing today despite being a holiday. I knew it would be crowded — a holiday, warm weather and a big swell (per Stormsurf - a fading Gulf of Alaska swell, 6.5 ft at 15 seconds). I had to park halfway to the 2-Mile Surf Shop at 8:30 am.

Only a few surfers were in the water — a surprise given the number of cars and people on Brighton Ave. I couldn't make up my mind where to surf, the Channel or the Patch. I spent a long time taking photos at both locations. Channel looked clean, good fast peeling left, but a little too fast. As I stood there watching, no one got a good ride. Surfers dropped down the faces and were buried as they tried to cut left at the bottom of the waves. Brief one to two second drops and the ride was over. The Patch was all over the place. Furthest sets broke way out there and a few stand-up guys were on them. The rest were randomly spread all over entire area.

David the local art teacher who swims in the ocean every morning estimated that the water was 50 degrees. I always ask his opinion of the water temperature when I see him. Robert the Oakland fireman walked by after his session. He rolled his eyes when I asked him how it was. "Temperamental, but fun."

I walked up to Terrace Road to the overlook above the Patch. Yoshi, the owner of Umi's in San Rafael, was sitting in his car checking out the waves. He too couldn't decide between the Patch and the Groin. Yesterday about 2 pm he got some good inside curls north of the Groin wall. He decided to go for that again and drove off.

David who used to ride the Becker board and Hank were way out there in the middle section about half way to the furthest peaks. I could see David's snow-white hair and figured that Hank was next to him — Hank's car was parked at the tennis court. David managed to connect on a sizeable wave and rode it all the way into the shore break — a good ride. But most of the time those two sat there waiting for a decent wave. Most waves broke further outside of them or way inside.

I zeroed in on a group of three surfers who were connecting on the inside rights of a consistent peak that broke over the rocks of the Patch reef and continuously peeled right over the sand bottom on the inside. I watched one guy connect on a fast curl near the shore, that's him in the above photo. The waves left a clearly defined "V" of white water, being above on Terrace Road I could clearly see it. The place to be was the apex of that V. I decided to head there and to watch the pattern of the white water for positioning.

While walking down the ramp with my board in hand, I met Hank coming in the other direction. He had a good session and said the waves were sizeable, powerful and fun. "Stay close to the outside rock and you will be fine."

David had moved to the inside peak when I paddled out. He always has a good feel for where the waves are. I watched him closely. The sea was rough and bumpy with constant up and down motion. The waves were a combination of large wind swells on top of big ground swells. When the two came together, a sizeable wave with plenty of force would jump up. David would wait until the wind swell was about to break before paddling for a wave. He would take off on the top peak, go straight and then drop over the edge of the ground swell. That's how it was done and I followed his technique. David caught several waves doing that.

Big set waves would break outside creating a wall of white water that would dissipate as the swell reformed and break again on the inside. Several times I paddled into the white water and managed to maneuver into the curl of the reformed wave. These were my best rides. One time, a large wave broke a few yards in front of me and I turned to catch the white water. It picked me up and threw me bouncing forward. I jumped up to my knees and hung on. David was paddling out and I was heading right for him, I steered back into the peak of the wave and barely missed him. I continued bouncing along, the wave reformed and I was still on my knees when it broke a second time. I jumped to my feet but the wave immediately bucked me into the water. That was my largest wave and I considered myself lucky.

Later, David and I took off on a similar wave together. It broke outside and we paddled into the white water, caught it and bounced along while it reformed. I jumped up, cut right and look down a head-high wall that held up. David was ten yards behind me. The wave walled up and broke several yards in front of me, as the breaking part of the wave came towards me, I swung around and started going left. David pulled out of the wave and I managed to trim along a nice left peeling wall on the inside. It was one of my best rides.

After exiting the water and walking across the south seawall, I could see that the full force of a warm weather holiday was in. Thirty surfers were spread across the Channel and Groin, I still didn't see any of them on good rides and more surfers were streaming down the ramp. Cars were circling Brighton Ave looking for parking. A guy stopped by me and asked if I was leaving. "Another twenty minutes," I told him. He drove off and reappeared a few minutes later. "I'll wait," and double parked his car next to mine while I changed out of my wetsuit, put on street clothes, strapped my board to the top of my car and dashed off to use the facilities before taking off. It was a good twenty minutes.

Due to the crowd I couldn't park to buy coffee or dash into 2-Mile to chat with Drew and Jaime. Despite that it was another good session.