Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Lake Activities
Down here in North Cack, we've got some pretty big lakes. There's practically a subculture in these areas; mainly that of rednecks who like to party at lakes. I may not be a redneck myself, but I likes to get down at the lake as much as the next guy.
Anyway, my good friend Bill, who lived with me for several years, used to have a 28 ft pontoon boat, upper deck and all, and a bunch of us spent the good majority of the summers of '08 and '09 living it up at Jordan Lake. Trust me, there are few things as fun as floating around a boat at night with a bunch of friends, occasionally getting a beer thrown out to you by someone on board, your own campsite not too far away. Bill used to talk once in a while about eventually living on a boat, and I'll be damned if the son'bitch didn't go out and make that happen just a few months ago.
He pulled the trigger on a 39ft Sea Ray up in Maryland. It's not a houseboat, but it's got ample room to live aboard, and plenty of room for a bunch of people to hang out on. At one point, due to construction and highway regulations, he thought he'd have to bring the boat down to North Carolina by way of the Atlantic. This would be roughly a 3 day journey, likely consisting of dodging tankers and sand bars, fishing, sunburn, dehydration, piracy on the high seas, drinking, and sleeplessness. I told him that if he had any inkling of a thought of going on this adventure without me, I'd probably never speak to him again. Unfortunately, however, my dreams were shattered as he found a transport service for a reasonable rate.
Here's a pic. Bill was wise enough to provide a sense of scale--that matchbox car next to the boat is a full-sized F250.
So the other day he sent me a quick e-mail saying something about how people are able to surf behind boats if the wake is big enough, and that we should give it a shot. It sounded like a good idea to me, so that weekend I hauled out my long board to see if we could make it work. You get some pretty strange looks from the 'necks at the lake when you show up with a surfboard. Some seem to get it right away, and others look at you thinking "the hell's that idiot gonna do with that thing?"
His boat/home, at the right speed, will create a wake about 3 feet high, and in turn, a "never ending" wave behind it. The best part is, it only costs several hundred thousand dollars in gas money to run at this speed. After a few tries, we got the whole thing wired and sure enough, it works.
Here's a clip pulled from one of the runs. I know I know, the beer thing. We just wanted to see how it would work out.
After a few runs we really started getting the hang of it. I'm thinking of using a different board; something smaller with a little more drive to allow for deeper turns, but for cruising around in general, you can't beat a 9 foot long board.
No shortage of finding things to do around here. Life is good.
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