June 5, 2013 Wednesday

Bolinas	Groin
9:10 am to 10:40 am	1’ to 2’, sets to 3’
Mid upcoming tide	Slight NW cross breeze
Overcast – June gloom	Exercise session

I met a new friend out in the water this morning – Archie from Mill Valley, older guy, exactly my age, longboarder. He was out at the Channel with Mary, DB the Safeway checker and Bill from Berkeley on his wave ski. That’s Archie on a set wave at the Channel in the above photo.

After being out at the Groin by myself for a few minutes, Archie paddled over from the Channel to join me.

“Did you give up on the Channel?” I asked.

“No, we realized we were in the path of the fishing boats.” A couple of local fishermen had passed by them, kicking up a huge wake and messing up the waves. Mary exited the water when I entered it. DB left a few minutes later and Bill paddled from the Channel to the ramp, and now Archie and I were by ourselves at the Groin.

He introduced himself and asked if I was regular here, of course I am. I started surfing here in 1988. That started off a conversation of trading our surfing histories. Archie and I have a lot in common. Both of us are 68 years old, we both starting surfing as kids, then had a long gap of several years of not surfing and then returned to the sport.

Archie grew up in San Diego and learned to surf at Ocean Beach (that’s Ocean Beach, San Diego, not San Francisco) and surfed there everyday for years. I’m familiar with Ocean Beach, my son used to live there, it’s a great beach town with a big sandy beach, a strand and lots of funky little shops and eateries, similar to Hermosa Beach in LA.

He moved to the Bay Area to go to college at SF State in 1962. That was the era of lousy wetsuits, no leashes, and tons of drugs. All the surfers were into drugs – including the hard stuff like heroin. Archie didn’t want to be associated with those creeps, so he gave up surfing. That started a 38-year gap in surfing where marriage, career and family intervened.

He returned to surfing in 2000 when on a business trip to Hawaii. At this point I stopped him. I had heard this story before. Archie and I had connected one morning a year ago at Linda Mar. I remembered it. It was just before the Kahuna Kupuna Surf Contest and I was at Linda Mar to tune up for the contest. He was considering entering it. That got us talking and he told me his story. In fact I wrote about him in my July 12, 2012 Surf Journal post.

During this business trip Archie had a room on the 20^th floor in one of the big hotels at Waikiki. He sat up there watching the surfers having a ball in the water. That took him back to younger days. The next day he rented a board, paddled out at Waikiki, was out for four hours and had a blast. On his flight home, he had an epiphany to take up surfing again. He stressed about how he was going to announce to his wife and grown-up kids that he was going to take up surfing again. They thought he was nuts. But since that moment he has been surfing for 13 years and loves it.

Most of his surfing has been at Linda Mar and points south. He has recently discovered Bolinas. I welcomed him and encouraged him to join us. If you see him out at the Channel or the Patch, say hello and share some waves with him.

May 31, 2013 Friday

Bolinas	North of Groin
9:30 am to 10:40 am	1’ to 2’, sets to 2.5’
Mid dropping tide	No wind
Bright sunny heat wave day	Exercise session

That’s Rob, Mr. Malibu, walking the nose on a thigh high set wave in the above photo. Yes, it was flat today. Mark the archaeologist greeted me at the base of the ramp. He was checking out the waves from the seawall. He was still there ten minutes later after I took a few pictures of Rob at the small, fast peeling left peak north of the Groin. Mark decided against going out and drove off while I was suiting up. So why did I go out? It was a beautiful beach day – warm bright sun, blue sky and no wind. Jacek was already out at the Channel and Rob was entering the water when I arrived. Two of the best of the Bolinas crew were out there, so there must be some waves, plus I hadn’t surfed since last Friday. Monday was Memorial Day (being retired, I avoid holidays) and Wednesday was smaller than today, and I was anxious for some waves.

“Loren, Drew was just checking out the waves and I wonder what he is going to put in his morning surf report. It’s tiny.” Frank the stand-up guy greeted me as I got out of the car. Drew is the owner of the 2-Mile Surf Shop and he or whoever opens the shop writes up a brief description of conditions and posts them on the shop’s blog. Their report always encourages people to come out and enjoy the beach. Here’s what he did report -

Sunny skies with light valley fog on the drive out and a morning temp of 54F.  No wind and a high-pressure system is over the area through the weekend.  Inland temps expected into the 90s.  Come out to the beach to cool off and take a dip.  

Lefts working in the knee high size both at the Groin and in the Channel.  Not too much going on here but just enough to get a longboard moving.  Possibly something going on over at Seadrift where the rights may be working in the knee high range as well. 

I joined Rob and tried for the small lefts. As you can see in the above photo, Rob has the ability to hang five on small waves. For me, by the time I stood up the ride was over. I rode most of them lying down so I would not waste any previous moments by standing up. Once in the wave I would sharply turn my board with my hands, push my body forward to put some weigh on the nose and hang on until the wave collapsed over me. After a few minutes Rob decided to go for exercise and took off paddling towards the Patch. So I had the peak to myself. For an hour I bellied down numerous small ones and then called it a day.

We surfers would never admit that we wasted our time. It was of course another beautiful Marin morning.

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.

May 20, 2013 Monday

Bolinas	Patch
9:40 am to 10:55 am	3’ to 4’, occasional 5’
High dropping tide (3.5 ft at 8:30 am)	Slight NW cross breeze to no wind
Bright sunny day – heat wave	Good session

“Jack, get back out there and I will take your picture.”

I had just walked down to the Patch carrying my camera with the 400 mm lens that I borrowed from Jacek. Jack had just completed a good inside nose ride, exited the water and had wrapped the leash around his 9’ 6’’ classic Dave Sweet longboard. I was kidding about going back out there, but Jack surprised me.

“Sure!” and he unwrapped his leash and paddled back out to the line-up. He caught a couple more waves and came in again. “My arms are exhausted after three hours.” He entered the water at 6 am and had a great session. That’s him in the above photo.

The surf was good this morning due to a 3 ft south swell at 16 seconds from New Zealand combined with a small NW wind swell. Per Stormsurf, this was swell S1 – meaning the first significant south swell of the season with three more pulses of energy arriving the next couple of days.

The hot weather and the news about the waves on the Internet brought the crowd out. Fourteen people were out at the Patch when I entered the water, 27 were out when I exited and more were arriving when I drove off. The Bolinas regulars were there early including – Mary, Jack the Dave Sweet team rider, Hank, David who rides the Becker board, Marty, Jacek the tattoo artist, Bill from Berkeley on his wave ski, Rob (Mr. Malibu), Susan who always wears sunglasses in the water, Shu-Shu and stand-up guys Frank and Walt the photographer. Later on, Paul from Mill Valley, Cort (part owner of 101 Sports in San Rafael) and another friend entered the water on their stand-ups and proceeded to dominate the inside peak.

Everyone had a good time. The waves were plentiful, the water was warm and the sun felt great. In a little over an hour I caught a ton of good right peeling waves, exhausted myself and had that surfer’s glow for the rest of the day.

Click on the link below see my photos of this day.

Bolinas Patch May 20 2013