Wakeboarding on the Potomac

On Saturday, Brent and Bethany Stevenson invited us to spend the day with their family. We were pretty excited about being on the water. We loaded up the Malibu with our lunches and drinks then drove to Dam Number Four on the Potomac river near Hagerstown, MD. First task once we were on the water was filling up the water bladder with 700lbs of water for counter balance in the bow of the boat. I remember boating and skiing many, many moons ago and remember having to move people back or forwards in the boat in order to help the boat get up on plane quicker. They choose to preload the boat. Plus it helps the boat sit lower in the water which helps to create a larger, wakeboard friendly, wake. Bethany was first to jump into the 84 degree water and show us how it is done. Then fourteen year old Michael stepped it up a notch with some high flying antics. He and his mom were having a contest of one-ups-manship. Today's challenge was a 180. Bethany landed the trick first but Michael didn't let her get away with it for long. After many attempts he finally landed a 180 wake to wake, which was one-up from his mom since she only did one wake. Brent strutted his stuff and showed us all that you really can teach an old dog new tricks. It just takes a little nerve, a bunch of practice, and a lot of ibuprofen. Next I gave it a shot. The last time I tried to wake board, it was completely unsuccessful at getting out of the water. My thought at the time was it may have been because of the boat load of people in a small boat. Ha! Get it? Boat load of people! The time before that, it was circa 1992 and it was still called skurfing. The board was unidirectional, thin and had neoprene loops to stick your feet under. The vessel was incredibly different from the amazing Malibu craft. We were in an inflatable zodiac with a small outboard motor. That was an experience. So anyway, back to me. My big bad self (emphasis on big) was none to easy to get up. After several tries with the rope handle launching out of my hands, I tried some gloves and my grip was greatly improved. I was finally able to out of water, played around a bit trying to get the feel of it again, rail slided on the wake then promptly splashed down the next time I tried to cross the wake. Unfortunately my arms, shoulders and hands could only handle a couple of more tries before having to take a break. Jill was next and did a great job getting up. Her challenge was trying to point the nose of the board towards the boat. Instead she headed straight for the outside of the wake each time. She did a great job and with a bit of practice she will be ripping it up. We had a great day on the water. It was amazing how smooth the water was all day long. The narrow river (two hundred yards or so), tall banks with tall trees really protect the water from the wind. There were plenty of boats but the wakes died out really quickly when they hit the banks. Everyone had one, two, maybe three more times on the water. We took a couple of swim breaks in the warm water, ate our lunch and soaked in the sun. We finally packed it in and headed for home at five. What a fun day. We dragged our tired bodies home and I started popping the ibuprofen again. Here are the rest of the pictures. Actually, it is only about 100 of the 500 pictures that I took.