eat my wake!

Back to Thailand! That water is so blue and amazing and warm and tropical, looking through pictures makes me want to go back TODAY. Great place -- crowded with tourists -- but none the less great. One of the unquestioned highlights of Thailand though was going wakeboarding. There was pretty much zero waves in Phuket while we were there -- expected as they have a very set surf season, from April to October I believe. At that time, there are some small and decent, fun waves, (I hear), but the ocean goes completely flat the rest of the year. The locals call it "Lake Andaman." So while Lake Andaman doesn' t offer up much in the way of Surf, it does offer up some pretty fun alternatives...like wakeboarding! Which I will have to say is probably more fun (just in regards to pure unadulterated fun content) than surfing is, because you dont have to wait and wait and wait some more for a wave to come, only to mess it up, paddle back out, and then have to wait again -- wakeboarding is nonstop machine powered fun (well until you fall down. But then the boat will circle around, throw you the rope, and you're back to it again). On our final evening in Phuket, Selin treated me to a 30 minute wakeboarding session, which we fanagled with the local beach boys and got set up as the sun was going down, after they had finished with the last of their extra lucrative parasailing excursions (which take a fraction of the time and cost more, and I was not interested in doing). Anyway the wait was well worth it as wakeboarding was AWESOME. It's a sad state what surfing does to you, in that I pretty confidently believe that I won't be able to ever live far away from an ocean for an extended period of time without going crazy, but...if I ever have to test it...get me a boat and a wakeboard and I might make it. There are some similarities, both with surfing and snowboarding, but what was best about it was just how fun it was to go fast and the spray I could send from that wakeboard, I imagined it was a surfboard and I was throwing more spray than Sunny Garcia...well, it probably doesnt look all that impressive on the videos (again courtesy of the reknown water photog Selin Song), but it sure felt pretty sweet. See for yourself. The first video is my very FIRST attempt. Pretty smooth huh huh? At least for 3 seconds. Until I fall down:





In the second video, it took nothing less than a feat of superhuman strength to not let go of that rope... Now I know nothing about wakeboarding, but after doing it once, I'm pretty confident you won't see many wakeboarders taking off by almost getting up, sitting back down, and then getting back up again. Just a hunch. Check out that air though!!!

At the end of the session, I was dead tired, think I pulled a muscle in my leg, and was bleeding. But I couldn't wait to do it again.