Friday at work was torturous. Hot, sunny, very little wind, very blue skies and my boat hooked up to my truck out in the parking lot. Makes for a very long day at work knowing what I’ll be doing at the end of the day.

The evening started off with Sandy, Imhof and myself hitting the bay before the crowd showed up for some good water and some good footing… I started of the night with some laps around the bay. Started off with a run nearly all the way around the bay and then a second run 3/4 of the way around the bay again before finally losing my grip on the handle. Here’s a shot from my one…

Sandy was up next and pretty much did what I was doing… laps around the bay. She started off with a good run and then went out on the whip and was pretty much thrown into a tumble turn before she recovered to foot away.

Imhof was up next. He did some shoe skiing. Here’s a picture of one of his starts, but mainly it is a cool shot of the blue sky.

And then we went to pick up most of the rest of the crew at the dock. Paul, Joey and Kirk were waiting for us. A couple runs later we picked up Ronée as well and now we had a full boat. And then we did a whole lot of surfing.

Kirk watched Paul go and then gave surfing his first try. Being a pretty experienced wake boarder, he popped right up and soon was throwing the rope back to the boat to really surf.

Joey also hit the water on the surf board that night as well. And with the number of people in the boat, we had a nice wave to surf on.

We did find out the riding on the back of the boat does have it’s hazards… when you legs are dangling over the back of the boat resting on the ski platform, they are right where they can get hit with the surf board if it goes flying. Sandy learned this the hard way. We also learned the board can draw blood.

The minor flesh wound didn’t stop Sandy from re-learning how to surf. She said she had tried it a couple years ago, but hadn’t touched a board since. She was quickly up on top of the water.

Then Ronée took her turn on the board. She’d been out surfing last week and with all the people in the boat, she was able to quickly throw the rope to the boat and do some real surfing!

It wasn’t all surfing though… well really it was, but those that were watching the surfing were having a lot of fun too. We had some ice cold beer on board…

Imhof took the water next. For a little guy, he managed to make a big splash when he hit the water. I had to be on my toes with the camera to keep it mostly dry.

Then Paul took another turn on the board. He does the start a lot different from everybody else. Everyone else lays their feet on the board, rope comes tight as boat starts to move, board pops up on edge and then the boat takes off. Paul on the other hand just kind of stands on the board with the board under water, tells the boat to go and magically pops up out of the water. Here’s a picture of this in action…

Then I took to the board again. Surprisingly, when I’m not in the boat, the wake to surf on just isn’t as big, but I finally did manage to get comfortable enough to toss the rope to the boat.

Then we have what it the coolest group photo from the night… Everybody but me (because I’m in the water) managed to get in this picture taken using the mirror.

Then the night came to a close as the sun finished setting. We managed to get a cool picture of the Madison skyline…

And then as we headed back to the dock to end the evening on the water, I snapped this picture of the sunset.

It’s been about a week since I’ve last checked in with my water skiing activities and thought it was time to give an update…

Last Tuesday, after catching Transformers the night before, I went out skiing with the family. My parents took their boat out and I took my boat out and my sister and her entire family came along too. Everybody did some skiing and my niece Anna went skiing long line for the first time without any problems. Tuesday night at practice I talked with John, Sandy and T-Bell about skiing Wednesday morning. John and Sandy were in… T-Bell wasn’t sure where she’d be.

Wednesday started off looking bleak. Overcast and gloomy and looking like rain, but I checked the radar and it was clear. I called John to let him know that skiing was on and then headed to the gas station while leaving T-Bell a message that we were headed to the lake. Just as I’m pulling into the gas station, I get a message back from T-Bell. “omw” Not being fluent it text massage, I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but as I finished gassing the boat up, it came to me. “On My Way.” By 815 everyone is there.

We start the morning with some jumping. I take a set, John takes a set and tries some helis and then T-Bell goes again. Here are a few video clips of some of the better ones jumps and falls…

After jumping we head to the bay to do some footing. I started off the footing by taking a quick set of 6 back-to-back runs. Everyone else takes a few runs as well before I take one more set. Here are a few clips of some footing…

After all of the footing, we were pretty much content with the amount of skiing we had done, but decided to cruise down to Waubesa to see if Paul and Joey were out on the lake. After stopping for some drinks, we finally found them floating with a boat that wasn’t running very well. Ronée was out with them and wanted to work on some toe turns so we pulled her on a few runs. She made some turns but was really leaning on Joey for support. After that, we grabbed some more drinks and finally called it a day. It was now a very hot day and we were all getting burned.

Next up on Thursday, it was a relatively quiet day of skiing, just a ski team practice.

Friday we got back on the water behind my boat and did a whole lot more skiing. I did a quick jump set, Joey did some swiveling, Paul surfed, Rob wake boarded and made what I think is his first inverted trick (a front roll to fakey?), T-Bell did some surfing and then I learned how to finally get up the board, then Kyle had his first towed experience behind a boat when he got up on the wake surf board. Finally it was time for people to get to their volleyball games so we called it a night. Here are the pics…

This is when it got interesting… I’m leaving the boat launch area and heading to the main parking lot as I’m starting the drive home when I feel my truck get yanked backwards and my boat starts to jump around. I quickly stop. I hop out and look and don’t see anything evident on the drivers side with a quick glance. Then I hop over the trailer tongue and see that the trailer wheel is no where near to being in the right location. Not good. The axle was completely loose.

As luck would have it, my parents happened to be driving through the launch looking for my brother to see if he was out on Monona with their boat. My dad pulled one of the damaged u-bolts off the trailer and ran to Farm & Fleet. About and 75 minutes later he’s back with the parts, a jack and jackstands and we start re-attaching the axle to the trailer. An hour later, at 1030, the trailer is road worthy again.

Then I head out to catch the volleyball post game activities.

The next morning I wake up and head to the jump practice to get a few jumps in. Water wasn’t great, but my jumps went OK. Then T-Bell shows up and does some jumping, which I thought was great because she normally wants really good water conditions, but went jumping anyways. Then, she’s been thinking about trying flips for a while, and a few people know this. They mention that the tail wind is good for front flips and she decides to give it a whirl. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves. Here they are…

She wanted me to try heli’s too, but I declined saying I’d try them Monday night. Bugs was also inspired to try fronts and vowed to try them on Monday as well. Then we talk to Paul to make sure he can come instruct.

Sunday was a quiet skiing day for me…

Then Monday arrived… a day of reckoning… the weather cleared out by the afternoon, but just before we arrive at the lake the wind shifts and starts to come out of the north east… that means a head wind and rough water. Bugs goes first and tries his flips. Actually has a few good attempts. [Video coming soon]

Then I get some instruction for trying helis. Now to go back in time, this isn’t the first time I would spin as I leave the ramp…. year’s ago in 1992 I was jumping and my rope caught on the top corner of the ramp. As I reach the top of the ramp, I’m now facing the top corner of the ramp, which isn’t the right direction. I let go of the ramp, my spin continues and I land on the back and as I slide away from the ramp, the back end of my skis catch and that causes the front of the skis to come rushing at my face. Smack in the lip. Took out a big chunk of my to the point that I thought I had lost teeth. So, long story short, it took a lot of nerve for me to just decide to try a heli.

Back to today… I’m approaching the ramp, jumping from wave to wave with the rope wrapped… I finally skip onto the ramp and I’m going up. On my toes, thinking about not dropping my shoulder. I reach the top of the ramp, still a little shocked that I’m actually wrapped and trying a heli, then realize I need to let go of the rope with the one hand so I start my spin. And I make it all the way around so I land going backwards and almost on my skis. I completed my first attempt. Didn’t ski away, but I did it. Here’s the video…

Next attempt, a little better… I make it about 3/4 of the way around.

After we were done jumping, Paul did some more wake surfing… it’s his new addiction. Then he tries something new. He grabs one of Bugsy’s jump skis and starts jump ski surfing…

Then I did a little surfing and we called it a night.

For all the pictures in one convenient location, you can check out the Picasa Web Album with all of these pictures and some more.