July 18, 2011 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
9:15 am to 11:15 am	Consistent 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	Slight onshore breeze to no wind
Sunny with high clouds, fog bank on the horizon	Good session

I had no expectations for waves this morning. Stormsurf had predicted that it would be flat all week, and the buoy forecast for San Francisco had ocean swells pegged at three feet for the next five days. This morning's reading was 4 ft at 9 seconds. Only positive was that the 4 ft was a combination of a 2 ft NW swell at 6 seconds and a 2 ft south swell at 14 seconds.

I seriously contemplated going to Linda Mar because the SW breeze would be offshore there. Instead I opted to go to Bolinas to hang out with my friends and if there were no waves I would go for a jog on the beach at Stinson. I put an extra pair of socks and a T-shirt in my bag for jogging. But what a pleasant surprise when I arrived at Bolinas, the waves were decent. Cazadero Cathy, who was suiting up, claimed the waves looked good and that David who rides the Becker board, Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and Frank the stand-up guy were at the Patch. From the base of the ramp I saw them out there. But at the Channel I watched a perfect four-foot wave peel left and no one was out there. One surfer was at the Groin going for the fun shore-break waves.

I walked down to the Groin to take some pictures. As soon as I saw those clean, glassy peaks at the Channel, I knew where I was going. The one surfer at the Groin was Paul and he was having a grand time. Three-foot walls would come through, and Paul would stroke into them late, jump up, cut left, crouch down, grab the outside rail and hang on until the waves broke over him. In the few minutes I was there, I saw him catch at least five such waves. That's him in the above photo locked into a clean small curl. When I paddled out I asked him if he had tried the Channel. He said no because he wanted to work on riding small fast curls. I caught one of those shore-break waves and for a brief second I was locked the curl before the wave closed out in front of me. After that I headed out to the Channel.

Being the only surfer out there I didn't have any reference point on where to line up. I started in the middle of the Channel and worked my way back towards the Groin. The waves were beautiful: fast, clean, left peeling curls, but they were difficult to catch. The flat swells would jump up when they hit the shallow sandbar fold over and collapse. I had a frustrating first hour, by the time I coasted into a wave and stood up the wave had already broken several yards in front of me and the ride was over. Conditions changed in my second hour, the tide came up, increased the water depth and waves began to hold up and became easier to catch. The set waves were more forgiving, meaning they had shape, were flatter on the take-off and allowed for an extra second to jump up and position oneself on the wave, the larger the waves, the better the shape.

I caught one wave that made my whole session. I was sitting outside when a big set came through. I let the first two go by while the others in the water went for them. The third and largest wave was right in front of me. I paddled hard, caught it, jumped up, cut left and hung at the top of the curl. The curl stood up, I turned more into the wave and was nearly parallel to it. Some young surfer started to take off in front of me, I intimidated him by barreling down the line right at him, fortunately he quickly pulled back and I shot by barely missing him. Now I was firmly locked in the curl, standing three-quarters the way up on my board, and I stood there frozen for several yards. Some short-boarder tried to drop in on me; I didn't move, the nose of my board went under his as he hung at the top of the wave. He panicked and backed off and I went on. On and on I cruised until the wave died a few feet from the Groin wall. This ride made my day.

The crowd filled in as the waves improved. At first as was by myself, then another longboarder joined me and he also had difficulty catching the waves. A few minutes later a second longboarder on a classic old board with no booties or leash joined us. This guy knew what he was doing and soon caught several long rides. Next the two guys I nearly ran over on my best wave came out, and David and Rob paddled over from the Patch. Per David, they had used up all the waves at the Patch and decided to move to the Channel. As usual David connected on several set waves. Paddling out I watch Rob come down a well-formed wall. Later, Shu-Shu joined us. I had not seen her in months. She too managed to connect on several good ones.

After two hours my arms were giving out, crowd had picked up, summer surf camp started and soon twenty campers on soft-top boards were going for the small inside waves and having a ball. It was time to go in, besides I wanted to save some of my strength for another day this week. I chatted with Shu-Shu as I walked back to the ramp. With eight-year-old twins who were on summer break, she didn't have much time to surf and was thankful for her good session this morning.

I looked back at the Channel, a perfect peak was peeling in both directions, twenty-five surfers were in the water, the wind had dropped, the surface had glassed off, the sky was blue, a few wisps of fog drifted over hills behind Stinson and a fog bank sat on the horizon preparing to march back in. I thought to myself, "This is it, Bolinas at its best."

July 13, 2011 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:30 am to 11:00 am	3' to 4', sets to 5'
Mid upcoming tide	Stiff NW cross breeze
Misty drippy fog	Fun session

After yesterday’s good session and with the south swell still running I was anxious to get back to Bolinas. I got up and went to the computer to check the latest conditions and there waiting for me was an email that Mary had forwarded to me. It was from Novato Pete’s daughter Sami with the sad news that Pete had taken his own life. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say or do. One of our own, one of the tribe that we surfed with everyday had ended it all.

It seemed fitting that Bolinas was shrouded in a blanket of dripping fog when I arrived. Several of the crew were there with sad expressions and words of disbelief: Mary, Jaime the starving artist cartoonist, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider, Ray the Petaluma fireman, and standup guys Frank and Russ. I had no idea that Pete was hurting. Some of the others knew he was going through hard times. But we all agreed that when Pete was in the water he seemed happy, happy to be there, to be out in the elements and to be with us. He was a quiet guy who enjoyed the challenge of the waves and his surfing skills were improving with every session. A couple of months ago he got a new board that he loved and his abilities soared on his new stick. Sami had mentioned in her note that surfing and our friendship had sustained him.

Out in the water Matt paddled over to me, “did you hear the news?”

“Yes, Mary forwarded an email to me.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I.”

Jacek the tattoo artist stopped by when paddling back out to the lineup. “Did you hear about Pete?”

“Yes.”

“How sad. I was just getting to know him.”

The surf was good just like I had hoped, but the gloom of the fog and news of Pete put a damper on the morning. One of the positives about surfing is that for a brief hour or two it removes you from your daily cares. Being in the elements with the water and the waves, you have to concentrate on the here and now thus your pressing worries and concerns are temporarily suppressed as you live in the moment of the next wave. As I entered the water my thoughts shifted to the conditions, the peaks, and the incoming waves. The Internet surf predictions were correct: a three-foot seventeen second south swell resulting in three to four foot long line waves at the Patch. The inside rights I enjoyed yesterday were firing this morning. A young short boarder trimmed across one perfect curl after another. He would take off goofy-foot (right-foot forward) with his back to the wave, quickly switch stance to left foot forward to face the wave and walk the nose as the wave stood up, that’s him in the above photo. On my first wave I connected on a good right wave. It was slow but it went on and on until it collapsed onshore in one-foot of water. From then on I managed to stroke into several long lefts and right waves.

Like yesterday Matt had another good session. He too managed to connect on both long rights and lefts. Near the end of my session I was sitting inside when a set came through. Matt was at the peak and stroked into a four-foot wall as it was breaking. He jumped up, cut right and hummed down the face right pass me. I paddled over the wave, looked back and saw Matt crouched down streaking across one of those perfect inside curls. This was just one of several good rides he caught this morning.

Jacek also had a good session. As usual Jacek sat way outside and waited and waited for a big set. His patience paid off; he saw a set coming and positioned himself at the peak. He stroked into a five-foot wave, as did a standup surfer. Jacek was deep in the pocket and streaked along the bottom of the swell as the standup surfer hung at the top of the wave about to drop over the edge. In a flash Jacek went under the standup guy, which spooked him causing him to flop backwards off his board. Jacek calmly continue on cruising down this beautiful wall. Later after a good ride I was standing in chest-high water and watched Jacek catch the wave of the day. He was again way outside and north of the pack when a set came through. Jacek connected on a head-high wall; he smoothly dropped to mid swell, stepped to the middle of the board, stood erect and trimmed across a perfectly formed wave. He headed right for me. The wave stood up, he stepped to the nose and passed within ten feet of me. Here he was on the nose of his Patch specialty board: an eleven-foot, narrow, pintail, no rocker javelin. I continued paddling out. A couple of minutes later I looked for him. He was starting his long paddle back out to the lineup, ten feet from shore and a good two hundred yards down the coast.

After an hour and a half I was exhausted and went in. With the session over the thoughts of the day returned. The waves were fun and I had a good session, but my mind wandered back to Pete as I drove home.

“Pete looked what you missed.”

July 12, Tuesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:00 am to 10:30 am	3' to 4', sets to 5', occasional 5'
Mid upcoming tide	Stiff NW cross breeze
Overcast to patchy sun	Good session

I hadn’t surfed for twenty-five days (since June 16) and was anxious to get back into the water. Why so long? Kate and I took a ten-day trip to Martha’s Vineyard and New York City. We returned on Saturday July 2nd, went to a friend's barbeque on Sunday and stayed home on Monday because it was the Fourth of July holiday. Tuesday July 5th I headed to Bolinas for some waves and to see my friends. I traveled from bright sunshine in Mill Valley to cold on-the-deck fog in Bolinas. No body was at the beach, not even the surf fanatic David who rides the Becker board, conditions were terrible: fog, south wind, four-knot current coming out of the lagoon and a six-inch swell. I didn’t bother going out. These conditions lasted all week.

The stats on the Internet were excellent this morning, 3 ft south swell at 17 seconds, five-knot NW wind and an upcoming tide. All the parking spaces were taken when arrived at Bolinas. David's car was in its normal spot with his board gone. He was in the water that was a good sign. From the seawall with my camera in hand I saw six surfers at the Channel and a much larger crowd spread across the Patch. The south swell was in and both breaks had sizeable waves.

Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and Jack the Dave Sweet team rider had just finished their session. Of course they reported that I had missed it; the waves at the Patch were perfect an hour earlier. They had connected on several head-head bombs at the outside peak that went on forever. But as the tide came up the waves had gone flat, infrequent and difficult to catch.

I walked down to the Groin for a closer look. The set waves were slightly over-head, steep vertical walls that peeled left. The six surfers out there had trouble making them. They would drop down these steep faces and then the waves would bury them in a ton of white water. The exception was Josh the Bolinas fisherman. I saw him catch three great waves. Josh rides the waves on his knees and thus doesn't lose any time or momentum standing up. He would stroke into a peak, quickly jump to his knees, lock the inside rail under the lip of the curl and shoot down the line. That's him in the above photo on a good one.

Since I hadn't surfed in awhile I decided to go for the mellow waves at the Patch. While walking to the break with my board in hand I met Hank and Dan exiting the water. Hank assured me that there were still some waves left. I asked them where they went, inside or outside. All over they said, conditions would change and they would move with the changes.

From the shore I watched one skilled, tall, thin young surfer hang five, yes a real five toes over the nose, on a three-foot inside curl. Within a few minutes he repeated this feat and continued repeating it all morning. Wow I would try for that. My strategy was to sit inside, within the foam of previous waves and go for the inside rights. My strategy worked. On my first wave I watched two guys way outside paddle for it and miss it. The swell kept coming and building. I went for it as it was feathering at the top, glided into it, turned right, stepped to the middle of the board and trimmed down a long well-formed curl. What a good start to my session. The skilled young surfer and his buddy dominated the peak, but they shared the waves with the rest of us.

Though the bottom was causing the waves to break right, I did connect on one good left. The incoming swell stretched across the impact zone and was cresting. I stoked into it as it was breaking, jumped up, turned left, dropped down a head-high face, and leaned into the wave at the bottom. I could see the swell forming in front of me, if I only could get under the white water and back into the curl. I stood just behind the center of my board, the wave was breaking over the nose, and I sped along the bottom just behind the breaking curl. On and on I went. I finally managed to climb back into the swell. I stepped to the middle of the board and sped through a long inside section until the wave finally died near shore. I had traveled a long ways and ended up in sand north of the Patch reef. It was a long paddle back to the line-up but what a great wave.

Matt was out at the furthest peak and when the sets came through he would connect. I could tell it was him by his unique style. While paddling out I noticed that Matt had moved further out and to the north to be by himself. The next time I saw him he was crouched down screaming across an inside curl north of the Patch reef. Matt later exclaimed that he had a great session. Lucky for him, he was between projects at work. What perfect timing, a good south swell arrived between job assignments.

A stand-up surfer, who I had never seen before, had an outstanding session. He caught everything and milked them all the way to shore. He would be the furthest guy out waiting for the big sets. Time and time again, he would stroke into a set wave, fade left to let the wave build up, swing right into a well-formed wall and then cruise on and on until the wave crashed onshore. Near the end of my session I was sitting on the inside peak trying for the fast peeling rights of the shore break. Several times I saw this guy come blazing by on his big stand-up board riding it like a shortboard. He even hung five a couple of times. He was out there when I entered the water and was he was still there when I left. After my session I changed, went into town for a coffee, returned to the seawall for one last look at the waves. This guy was still there and still screaming down the fast shore break curls on his big stand-up board.

After an hour and a half, the wind was picking up and my arms were spent, time to go in. I caught a good right that I worked into the shore break. I looked around to watch a shortboarder come down another perfect shore break curl. I couldn't stop yet; I had to go for one more. I paddled back out and caught two more great inside curls. What a perfect way to end a good session.

Boy, did it feel great to be back in the water.

June 16, 2011 Thursday

Bolinas	Channel & Groin
8:40 am to 10:40 am	2' to 3', sets to 4', occasional 5'
Low upcoming tide	Offshore east breeze to no wind to stiff NW breeze
Sunny, bright and warm	Great session

Paper-thin curls, lots of them, and I locked my inside rail under the lip, crouched down mid-board and shot through perfect left peeling curls. Today was Bolinas at its best: bright sun, warm weather, offshore breeze to no wind, upcoming tide, glassy smooth, consistent beautiful little waves and only three of us on it: David who rides the Becker board, a young guy on a Dewey Weber longboard and myself.

Per Stormsurf south swell #4S (meaning the fourth major south swell of the season) was going to peak today (3.6 ft at 17 seconds) and then taper off Friday and Saturday. The weather guys forecasted today as the warmest day of the week. Despite the good predictions I was concerned about the wind. I came out here last Tuesday expecting a clean south swell and warm weather only to be greeted by on-the-deck fog, a stiff onshore wind, chop, white caps and lousy waves. This morning the San Francisco buoy read NW winds (305 degrees) at 15 knots. That was a lot of wind but the direction was right, meaning offshore at Bolinas, thus I had to check it out.

David and DB the Safeway checker were suited up as I arrived and were heading to the Patch. A few minutes later, Matt finished suiting up and went to the Patch also. From the base of the ramp I could see five more surfers at the Patch. With the minus tide and the south swell the crowd sat several yards beyond the exposed outside rock. I watched Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and Dexter the Bolinas local connect on a couple of decent waves.

So the Bolinas regulars were at the Patch, but to me the waves looked better at the Groin. From the ramp I saw several nice peeling left curls come through. I walked down to the Groin with my camera in hand and ventured out on a finger of sand that extended ten yards out into the Channel. What a photographer’s dream, that put me within a few yards of the break. I didn’t recognize the three surfers out there, but all three connected on some beautiful curls in the ten minutes that I was standing there. That was one of the better rides in the above photo. Look closely and note that this guy was riding a soft-top board. He caught one fast curl after another. The other two also locked themselves into the curls of these perfectly peeling left waves. After seeing these guys connect, my decision on where to go was settled. I chose the Channel.

By the time and suited up and entered the water, these three guys had left. Only the young longboarder on the Weber board was out there. A few minutes later, David paddled over from the Patch to join us. For nearly two hours, the three of us had the break to ourselves, we shared the waves and each of us caught countless fast, well-formed, paper-thin curls. We couldn’t believe that others did not come out and join us. On wave after wave I would jump up, cut left, climb high in the curl, step to the middle of the board, lock the inside rail under the lip, crouch down and trim down a beautiful curl until the wave finally closed out in shallow water. And as the tide came up, the waves improved. After two hours I was exhausted and went in.

Walking down the beach, I looked back to see David with his back to the wave, crouched down with the lip of the wave slapping his right shoulder. I mentally fixed the images of David’s ride and these perfect waves permanently in my mind for it was truly Bolinas at its best.

June 15, 2011 Wednesday

Pacifica	Linda Mar - South End
8:40 am to 10:30 am	4' to 5', sets overhead
Mid upcoming tide	Onshore breeze
Bright sunny morning	Good session

Yesterday morning I read an email from Marty stating that we should venture to Linda Mar on Wednesday. We have talked about doing this for months but conditions never seemed right. The Internet sights were predicting the arrival of a new south swell and they don’t get into north facing Linda Mar. Tuesday I went to Bolinas with high hopes of warm weather and clean south swell waves. What a disappointment, Bolinas was shrouded in an on-the-deck fog with a stiff onshore west wind. The surf was terrible: small, blown-out, crumbly, weak and ugly. I didn’t bother going out. Conditions for Wednesday looked the same, so I responded to Marty that it was time to give Linda Mar a try.

Things didn’t look good as we drove down the Great Highway on our way to Pacifica. Ocean Beach was totally blown out, a stiff onshore wind howled and nobody was out. They had closed the southbound lands of the Great Highway at Lincoln due to sand blowing onto the roadbed.

We managed to get one of the last spots in a jammed parking lot at Linda Mar. The ambassador of Linda Mar, Greg Cochran, greeted Marty and me when we got out of the car. Greg is a long-time local, about our age, founder of the San Pedro Point Surf Club and the Kahuna Kupuna surf contest and a great surfer. He was glad to see us and explained the reason for all the cars and the crowd of surfers at the south end of the beach. The San Pedro Surf Club just finished a memorial paddle out for one of the two San Francisco firemen that perished fighting an apartment fire last week. Greg pointed out the fire trucks and people in uniform gathered in the parking lot. Out in the water we did encountered remnants of Hawaiian leis from the ceremony.

“Gentlemen when you check out the surf walk slowly, take your time, there’s no hurry,” Greg stated.

“You’re referring to the tide. It’s too low and we should wait until it comes up, correct?”

“Yes, nine o’clock is my recommendation. It will get better then.”

To my surprise while Marty and I were chatting with Greg, my niece Heather from Ventura appeared. She teaches fifth grade, the school year had just ended, and she was visiting her cousin Erin (also my niece). Heather was here at the beach to go surfing with my son Kevin. Just then Kevin walked up with his friend Wes. What a pleasant surprise. By the way Marty was Kevin’s biology teacher in high school and Kevin claimed that his constant encouragement pushed Marty back into surfing after he retired. We all suited up and headed for the south end.

The surf had some size. The north end must have been ten-foot plus and closed out. That’s why the crowd was bunched up at the south end. I counted sixteen surfers at the one decent left peak, and thus wave selection was hampered by the actions of the other surfers. The waves were wind swells on top of ground swells and the take-offs were flat. We had to wait until the wind swell was cresting, paddle hard, jump up and push straight off to drop over the edge of the ground swell. For us old guys, the waves were ideal, the flat take-offs gave us that extra second or two to get up and position ourselves before dropping down the faces.

I saw Heather get a good one. I have surfed with her several times at Surfer’s Point in Ventura and know that she is good. Looking back I saw her head streaking along in front of the breaking curl as she cruised a long ways before straightening out. Heather usually rides a 9’ 6” board, but this morning she was on Kevin’s eight-foot Becker, a Mike Gee longboard model. She told me that it was a lot smaller and thinner than what she was used to. But from the number of waves she caught, it didn’t slow her down.

Marty had a great session. The crowd didn’t phrase him; he paddled for everything and caught several of them. He told me that he connected on three great waves where he cruised down the faces, cut back, let the waves build up again, shot through the inside sections and snapped up over the tops as the waves broke. I too managed to connect on a couple of good ones. On one I was able to push into a steep shore break, scream across a fast breaking curl and then buried the nose in the white water of the breaking wave.

All morning there was a mass of brown foam floating on the surface. At first it was outside beyond the breakers. An hour later we were sitting in the middle of it and thirty minutes later it was washing onto shore. Biologist Marty thought it was caused by wave turbulence and seaweed out by the point, high protein water being stirred up. All I could think of was the number of times I had read about the sewage problems at Pacifica. Health officials often close Linda Mar after heavy run-off storms. So far as I write this, there were no signs of skin rashes, runny nose or burning eyes. Lets hope Marty was right.

I took the above photo from the deck of the Taco Bell that sits on the beach. Marty and I gave considerable thought to where to have lunch. Pacifica offers some good choices. Denny’s was across the street with all-day giant and reasonable breakfasts, and a mile north was Gorilla Barbeque. Once Guy Fieri on his Dinners, Drive-ins and Dives show featured Gorilla Barbeque, and since that show aired, the place has been jammed. Because it was such a beautiful, summer like day, we opted for Taco Bell where we could sit outside in the sun and watch the surf. The beach scene from the deck was entertaining: great surfers out front, a surf school to the south and a summer camp for little kids to the north.

We congratulated ourselves for making the good decision to come here. It was a beautiful morning.

June 10, 2011 Friday

Bolinas	Channel & Groin
9:30 am to 10:50 am	2' to 3', occasional 4'
Mid dropping tide	Onshore west wind
Sunny with high clouds and fog on the horizon	Frustrating - exercise session

The weather guys had forecasted that Thursday (yesterday) would be the warmest day of the week and Stormsurf had predicted that the good south swell that I rode Wednesday would peak on Thursday. Thus with the warmest day and the peak of the swell, Thursday was the day to go surfing. My son Kevin and I agreed to meet early at Kelly Cove, the north end of Ocean Beach. Based on conditions we would decide to surf there or push on south to Linda Mar. Ocean Beach is not my favorite spot, in fact I hate it. But with the right conditions it can get good for longboards. Well the weather didn’t cooperate, our June gloom of overcast, fog, wind, chop and white caps had returned. Kevin and I made a quick executive decision to have breakfast at Java Beach (located at the end of Judah Street) and not waste our time chasing waves at Linda Mar, Montara, Kelly Avenue or points further south. Kevin had to go to work and didn’t have much time. What a good decision. Kevin had just attended a three-day conference on Computer Architecture, a conference he attends every year. Thus he gave me an interesting update on the current trends in computer design.

This morning I had high hopes of catching the end of the south swell. What a disappointment. The swell was gone and the west wind and NW wind swells had returned. Since the weather was warm and sunny, I decided to go out anyway. When I arrived at Bolinas and before I could suit up, all my friends had exited the water and were leaving. Jeff the contractor was toweling off. He had surfed the Channel and said it was ok, earlier. Doug and Jim the jazz guitarist were loading up Doug’s truck to leave. They went out at Seadrift, two houses in, and caught some good ones, earlier. Creighton had just put his board into the back of his truck and reported that Seadrift had some decent waves, earlier. When I returned from taking some photos Mary was putting away her board to go home. She had surfed the Patch and said it was better earlier and that now the waves had died.

Five surfers, who I did not recognize, were out at the Groin and the Channel when I walked down there to take some pictures. The waves looked like they had some potential. A few small fast, peeling lefts came through when I arrived at the Groin wall. One young longboarder was extremely good. He would run to the nose on every wave. Perfectly flat, mushy little crumblers and he would be hanging five as the wave broke in one foot of water. That’s him in the above photo.

I had a frustrating one-hour and twenty-minute session. The waves were difficult to catch and by the time I stood up they had collapsed in front of me. With the tide going out, I had to paddle against the current pouring out of the lagoon. It was like running on a thread mill. I would paddle hard and remain stationary. I didn’t move forward until the wave would pick me up. It was almost impossible to drop into them. My best ride I took lying down; I didn’t want to waste any time trying to stand up. I caught the wave, remained laying down, cut left, shifted my weight forward, ducked under the lip of the curl and flew out onto the shoulder. There I jumped to my knees and cruised until the wave closed out. I tried lying down on a larger wave and got clobbered. I cut left and leaned into the curl to gain speed. The wave jumped up, my inside rail dug into the curl, I hung on tight to my board and was sucked up the face and dumped into a ton of churning white water. I was lucky that my board didn’t hit me.

Just for exercise I paddled from the Groin to the ramp and called it a day. Despite the small waves and frustrating rides, it was worth it. What a beautiful morning: bright sunshine, warm air and water, seals swimming into the lagoon, pelicans diving for fish beyond the breakers and me with the satisfaction of another vigorous workout.

June 8, 2011 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:50 am to 11:20 am	3' to 4', sets to 6'
Low dropping tide	Onshore breeze
High overcast	Fun session

I had no excuse this morning, we weren’t collecting water samples for Surfrider’s water testing program because the program was shut down for the summer, but still I didn’t get into the water until 9:50 am. I’m always amazed how long it takes me to make it out to the line-up. Yesterday I waited for Kate to finish a morning phone call before we headed to Pete’s in Mill Valley, which is our normal routine. Even with that delay I was in the water at 8:45. This morning we made it to Pete’s at the usual hour. I hung out with local friends John and Matt and after we settled the Giants line-up strategy I headed to the beach at eight and arrived at Bolinas at eight-thirty. Great I should be in the water at nine. No way, I had to shoot the breeze with Jacek the tattoo artist, Dan, Mary and Jaime the starving artist cartoonist and take some photos for the Journal.

Twice I had locked up the car and had to return. First Mary exited the water and I went back to my car to retrieve the surf DVD that I borrowed from her a couple of weeks ago. Next Jacek handed me the lens cap to the 400 mm lens that he loaned to me. Now that I’m a senior citizen, I have to take care of the little things right away or I will forget them. So I immediately returned to my car to safely tuck the lens cap into my camera bag.

“I hope you have a good story for that one.” Dan had to tell me how he broke his nose yesterday at Cronkhite.

“No I don’t. I kooked the wave. I had just completed a good wave and then went for a wave I never should had gone for. The wave dumped me, threw me down underwater and my board hit me on the nose. Now I know why you should always put your hands in front of your face under water. I had this longboard because my 6’ 11” Cronkhite board is in San Diego, but I will get it back this weekend.”

“Dan what are you doing going to Cronkhite? You’re too old for those hard pounding waves. You should be out here with the rest of the old guys.” He agreed.

When I returned the DVD to Mary, Jaime grabbed it. He wanted to see it. We started chatting about music. I have been telling him for months about my extensive collection of surf music. I keep hounding him to dedicate one of his weekly radio shows to surf music. Every Tuesday night from 8:30 to 10:30 pm, Jaime broadcasts two hours of rock, blues and jazz on the West Marin radio station KWMR. (I highly recommend his show, check it out). Jaime has collected music since he was a kid, owned a music store and has traveled the country playing lead guitar for various blues bands, thus he knows his stuff.

“Doug how about those Giants?” Doug is such a huge Giants fan he travels to Arizona every March to watch a few spring training games.

“Loren, I don’t know why I bother going. I was there last night and they lost again. Every time I go to a game, they tank.” I don’t go to many Giants games but I did go a couple of weeks ago to see them lose to the Florida Marlins one to nothing. While exiting the stadium I ran into Doug.

“Sanchez was terrible last night. He pitched five innings and walked ten batters. He stunk.” The Giants lost two to one to the Nationals.

After taking photos, shooting the breeze and suiting up, it was nine-fifty when I headed out to the Patch. Remnants of the south swell were still there and the swell picked up while I was in the water. My arms were tired from yesterday’s session. I was feeling it by the time I reached the line-up, some twenty yards beyond the outside rock, and I had to keep paddling through the impact zone to get back out. The impact zone was a mile wide today and there was no way of paddling around it. Despite that, using the outside rock as my marker I managed to connect on a few long lefts.

Marty caught a good one when I first paddled out. He dropped down a head-high wall, went under white water sliding down from the top of the wave, climbed back into the swell, passed within ten feet of the outside rock and cruised on and on until the wave died on the inside. Matt caught a good one. He stroked into a set wave as I was paddling back out north of him. He cut right down a head-high wall. When the wave slowed down he cut back left and crouched down. I thought he was going to swing right again. No, he kept coming left and the wave built up in front of him. He soon passed by the rock and behind me. The next time I saw him he was starting the long paddle back out, way on inside and a good two hundred yards to the north. Wine Country Pete caught a good one on his ten-foot bright yellow longboard. We were sitting together on the outside when a sizeable wave came through. Pete stroked into as it was breaking while I paddled over it. I looked back and saw only his head streaking along in front of the breaking curl. The next time I saw him he was making the long paddle back way on the inside and north of the take off point.

After an hour and a half I was spent and worked my way in. Again I had achieved that glow of satisfaction from vigorous exercise, fun waves and good friends.