April 24, 2013 Wednesday

Bolinas	Patch
9:50 am to 11:30 am	Consistent 3’, sets to 4’
Mid upcoming tide	NW cross breeze
High fog to overcast – June gloom like	Good session

The heat wave broke last night at 9 pm. A cold west breeze started up bringing the fog with it. Overcast had set in this morning in Mill Valley. I broke out into bright sunshine going over the mountain and descended into a thick cloud on the road to Stinson Beach. At Bolinas the cloud was a high fog with a cold onshore breeze that put a texture on the surface of the water. June gloom had arrived in April.

A few of the regulars were out at the Patch: Mary, Martha, David who rides the Becker board, Paul, Hank (on the day before heading to London) and Frank the stand-up guy. Jacek was suiting up when I pulled into the parking area. He said there were waves at the Channel and the Patch and that he was going to the Patch because he likes going right. All the waves at the Channel were breaking left. He entered the water while I was taking photos and quickly stroked out to the line-up. Within seconds he was on a nice right peeling wave close to shore. That’s him in the above photo on a steep shore break curl.

While I was suiting up, Jacek returned to his car. Short session – what’s up? He was changing boards. He put his 9’ 4” Fresh Pineapple longboard back into the car and pulled out a small hybrid (7’ 0” my guess). This was a good sign; the waves must be steep and fast for him to switch to a smaller board. When I was walking down the beach towards the Patch, I watched Jacek stroke into a four-foot steep right wave and cut up and down the face like a skateboarder in an empty pool.

Seven surfers were out at the Patch: David and Jacek and five others that I did not know, and these five were all good surfers. All the other regulars had left. To beat the crowd I headed to the north side of the peak to go for the lefts. My first wave closed out in front of me. My second one had good size, shape and speed, but as I stepped to the middle of the board I dug a rail and fell. A few minutes later I connected on a better one. This time I managed to lock inside rail under the lip of the curl and shoot through a fast section. For a brief second I felt that the old form was back.

I connected on a series of good long lefts that put me in the sand area north of the rocks of the Patch reef. This meant I had to paddle back through the impact zone. Twice while paddling out I watched Jacek and David connect of long – long right waves. The rights were definitely better than the lefts, and with the rights you could paddle around the break without having to go through any white water. So I drifted south, caught one good right wave that put me on the right side of the peak. From then on, I went for the rights.

After an hour the crowd swelled to nine surfers, all going for the rights and all of them excellent surfers. David and Jacek were the only Bolinas regulars in the bunch. Then Rob, Mr. Malibu, showed up – another excellent surfer. We were all jockeying for position. Fortunately the waves were consistent. Each set contained five or more waves. I would sit inside and wait for the sets. If someone outside missed a wave, I was on it. Both David and I used the same strategy with great success. By taking off late I was immediately in the steep part of the curl and with luck could blast through the first section, sail out onto the shoulder, cut back, let the wave build up again and drop into the shore break. It was great fun.

From the side, I marveled at Rob’s rides. On wave after wave he would take off late, glide into the top of the curl, sharply cut right, run to the nose and literally plant five toes over the tip of his board, run back, switch stance (putting his right foot forward with his back to the wave), and hang a sharp left turn as the wave collapsed near shore.

I was feeling good and having fun so I pushed myself to stay out for an hour and a half, like I used to do before my operation. I hit my goal, but my arms were feeling it and I had to go in. Both David and I felt it was a great day and were looking forward to doing it again.

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.

April 5, 2013 Friday

Bolinas	Patch
9:20 am to 10:40 am	2’ to 3’, sets to 4’
Mid dropping tide	NW cross breeze
Dense fog to overcast with light rain	Fun session

“Loren, don’t bother taking any pictures. You can’t see anything.” Russ greeted me at the base of the ramp, dripping wet with his big board in his hand and his paddle sticking in the sand. Russ was right I couldn’t see a thing – just a wall of white due to a dense fog.

“So how were the waves?”

“Good. I caught some good ones.”

“How big were they?”

“There’re waves. Some were shoulder high. The whole crowd is out at the Patch – Mary, Marty, David and Shu-Shu.”

I walked to the north edge of the seawall. Out of the whiteness I could the outline of the bluff, the downed tree and the shore break. I took two pictures just to historically record the conditions.

Jacek showed up. “Well?” he asked.

“Russ tells me there are waves, shoulder high, so I’m going.”

“Me too.”

Russ drove by while I was suiting up. “I’m going out because you said it was good,” I commented to him. “If it’s crappy, it will be your fault and you’ll be the subject of a future blog post.”

“Have a good time,” and off he drove. Fortunately Russ was right – the waves were good and I had a great time.

From the shore I couldn’t see anyone in the water. It was eerie paddling out. The whiteness shrouded out everything after the shore break. I paddled blindly towards where I knew the break was. After a few moments I saw a rider coming down a good inside wave. It was Shu-Shu. She cut back, let the inside curl build up and then turned into the shore break. I blindly continued paddling on and in a few more moments I encountered the crowd. It was like entering a room and I slowly continued until I could see everyone. There was Mary, Marty, Martha, David who rides the Becker board, Jacek the tattoo artist, Bill from Berkeley on his wave ski, Dexter the Bolinas local and DB the Safeway checker.

Since everyone was taking the rights, I had the lefts to myself. On my first wave I probably should have gone right, but I was anxious to go left, my comfortable side. I dropped down a fairly fast face, trimmed under the white water that was sliding down from the top of the wave, swung back into the swell and cruised. What a good ride; I knew I was into a good session. That was the first of a series of good left waves. I felt that I was back in the groove – climbing high in the curl, stepping to the middle of the board, crouching down and gliding across several steep faces. Near the end of my session I took a couple of rights and began working my way towards shore. Martha was on the inside connecting the good shore break right waves of Robinson’s Reef – named after the Robinson family (Martha, husband Jim and son Woody). Our tactic was to catch the waves over the Patch reef rocks and cruise right towards the sand south of the reef. When we connected the waves were great, but the wait between waves was long.

My last wave clobbered me. I connected on a good one over the rocks, was up early and quickly moving towards the shore break. My confidence was sky high; I was feeling like I was eighteen again, thus I was going to milk every inch of this wave. I pushed myself into the shore break and imagined myself running to the nose to trim across a fast shore break curl. The reality was I shuffled to the middle of the board and was caught in “no man’s land” when the wave sucked out; dry sand appeared below me and I free fell into six inches of water. I bounced off the top of my board, rolled spread-eagle off of it and bounced off the bottom. The wave was strong and threw me around under water and my board hit me in my calf. It hit me hard; reminding me that getting hit by your own board is the cause of most surfer injuries. When I surfaced the leash was wrapped twice around the tail of my board and I couldn’t get it loose. The next wave hit me and rolled me around some more. I had to pull the leash scrap off my ankle before I could stand up. Fortunately I was ok; but I was lucky.

To top off a fun session, I stopped at the Lunch Box in Stinson Beach and treated myself to my favorite sandwich, the BLT. I ate it driving over the mountain and stopped at the Bay Model in Sausalito to check out Surfrider’s Ocean Plastic Art Show. The show was opening tomorrow and it looked great.

It was just another beautiful morning in Marin.

April 1, 2013

Bolinas	Groin
9:30 am to 11:00 am	2’ to 4’, occasional head-high waves
Low outgoing tide	No wind to slight onshore breeze
Misty rain to overcast to bright sunshine	Fun session

Jacek, who had just suited up, laid out two surfboards on the ground next to his car – a shorter high performance board (7’ 0” my guess) and his 9’ 4” yellow Fresh Pineapple longboard.

“So which board are you going to take?”

“Both!”

“Both? Are you going to carry both of them down to the beach?”

“Yes. Could you help me to pick them up?”

He had the short one under his left arm and I tucked his long board under his right arm and off he went.

I had high hopes for waves this morning. The San Francisco buoy reported 6 ft NW swells at 17 seconds, a slight NE breeze and 51 degrees water temperature. When I checked out the waves, DB the Safeway checker was the only one at the Patch. Nine surfers were at the Groin connecting on two to four-foot left peeling curls. Out there were David who rides the Becker board, Marty, Hank and Russ the stand-up guy.

When I paddled out to the Groin, Jacek was sitting outside of everyone else on his colorful shortboard. He stroked into a four-foot wave, quickly turned right, ran to the nose and stood there for a few seconds until a wall of water collapsed around him. Thirty minutes he went in and changed boards. He also took off his booties because the water was warm (relatively speaking) and paddled back out on his yellow Fresh Pineapple longboard. Thirty minutes after that he switched boards again. So his final call was the shortboard.

I paddled out to join Hank, Marty and David. I caught one right away, but some beginner was standing with his board directly in my path. I had to bail out to prevent hitting him. Then I went into a dry spell. I tried for and missed ten waves in a row. Hank, Marty and David didn’t have any troubles; they caught one good wave after another. For forty-five minutes my frustration was mounting, but I was confident it would happen because the lefts looked so good, and it finally did. I don’t know how to explain it – either I figured it out, or the tide changed conditions or the waves got better. At last I connected on a four-foot wall, cut left, climbed high in the curl, stepped to the middle of the board and hummed across a steep curl until it broke all around me. Now I was into it. My next four waves were long, fast, well-formed lefts.

This morning I felt that my rehab was over. My arms were strong – of course there was less paddling at the Groin, especially at low tide. I could walk out to the waves. Given these conditions I stayed out an hour and a half, just like in the old days before my operation.

“David you must be hungry, it’s 10:50, lunch time.”

“You’re right. I start to get the shakes for my Swiss cheese sandwich.” Every morning David makes a cheese sandwich for his car ride home to Berkeley after his surf sessions.

“What kind of bread to you use?”

“Brownberry wheat bread with a slab of lettuce.”

“You put any mustard or mayonnaise on it?”

“No. I’m a sawdust sandwich type of guy.” I exited the water at eleven and David was still out there. He walked by my car at 11:30, another three and half hour session.

As usual, it was just another beautiful Marin morning.