June 23, 2014 Monday

Bolinas	Groin
9:20 am to 11:00 am	2' to 3', sets to 4'
High tide (4 ft at 10 am)	Stiff onshore breeze to no wind
Air temp: 55 degrees	Water temp: 57 degrees
Overcast to patchy sun with fog on the horizon	Fun session

Last Monday I went to the doctor for a check-up. He looked right at me and said in a stern voice, "you've gained 14 pounds since last January!" I was afraid of that. The surf has been lousy for the last few months, I have only been in the water once a week, I haven't gone to the rec center to work out or jog, and the calorie intake was up, especially with beer. The solution was obvious – exercise more, stick to the high-fiber diet and cut back on the beer and wine.

All of this was going through my mind while standing at the Groin wall watching Hank, DB the Safeway checker and Francine go for some sloppy two-foot waves. I have to go out for the exercise. Then Hank connected on a good left and DB rode one all the way into the cove. The NOAA weather radio said that a 3 ft 16 second south swell was mixed in with a small NW wind swell, so there was potential for some waves. But the stiff onshore wind put an ugly texture on the water. Doug, Creighton and Ray the retired Petaluma fireman claimed that the waves on the Seadrift side were good earlier – before the wind. Russ the stand-up guy confirmed their assessment. Mary had just finished her session at Lady's Left (also known as Green-Africa, a peak north of the Patch reef). She had fun on some long, clean lefts – earlier. Martha had just checked out the surf and was discouraged. She was considering waiting in hope that the wind would die and the waves would clean up.

"Martha, I'm going out for the exercise," I called to her coming up the ramp.

"Good, I'll join you." She changed her mind.

My first two waves were small, mushy and slow. But the waves improved as the tide came in and after an hour the wind stopped and the surface glassed off. Martha, DB, Francine and Bill from Berkeley scored on some good waves.

I decided to use Jacek's technique of sitting way outside, waiting for the sets, positioning at the apex of the peaks, pausing until the last second, digging hard to glide into the tops of the waves and stay there. Three times I scored with this strategy. On my last wave I saw the set coming, paddled over to the peak and waited until the wind swell portion of the wave began to break. I paddled hard and glided into a perfect left peeling wall. The takeoff lifted me up and my board inclined allowing me to easily jump to my feet. I turned into the curl as it was feathering, dropped to mid-swell, stepped to the middle of the board, crouched down and hummed across nice smooth wall. After the initial section, DB paddled for my wave; her board was sticking out over the edge of the curl when she saw me screaming down on her. She quickly pulled back and I shot past her. I continued on, stalled to let the wave build up again, turned back into the curl, leaned into it and pulled out when it finally closed out, way inside the Groin wall and only ten feet from dry sand. What a great ride.

"Better catch some waves, here comes the surf camp," I said to a girl surfer who was sharing waves with us. Last Wednesday surf campers surrounded me at this very peak. I ended up scaring the hell out of some poor kid as I ran into his sponge board. Fortunately today the instructors herded the campers down the beach to the Patch, a good spot for them. As I walked up the ramp after my session I watched in the distance six of them riding a single wave.

I wrote up today's session at a picnic table at Stinson Beach. Kate's Camp (Kate was tutoring two neighborhood girls) was in session until 12:30, meaning I had some time to kill. After a few minutes twenty little kids, surf campers, surrounded me to eat their lunches. One of them looked up at me with a surprised and amazed look on his face and asked, "Are you writing in cursive?" Wow, have times changed.

What I thought would only be exercise turned out to be fun. It was a beautiful morning and I caught several decent waves.