On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 5:47 AM, Jim <jimtibensky_at_fastmail.fm> wrote: > ..... I caught a ride on the wake > of a pushboat with 15 barges. I rode its wake nonstop from the campsite > to my car, a little over five miles. I was carrying on a conversation > with the crew of the boat, who took some pictures. I'd pay a lot for > one of those. > > A great story, Jim. And it illustrates one of the truisms for catching a decent ride on a powered boat's wake. Namely, the closer you are to the source the better the ride. One of my summer fun things to do is sit in the middle of the lake in front of my house and surf powerboat wakes. This is where I can encounter the unexpected nature of powerboaters. They will often either throttle down too far to produce a wake (believing, erroneously, that I would not want a boat wake) or try to go around me so far that the wake has pooped out before I can get onto it. Sometimes I can give them the water-skier's signal for "faster" (look it up) and have that work but even so it's difficult to get them close enough for a really good ride. On rare occasions I can talk a wakeboard boat into ballasting down for a high wake and then getting to within about 10 feet of me on their pass. Those things can throw out a gigantic wake when they ballast down!!! Of course, you have to get a chance to talk to them first. Jet ski wakes, by the way, are useless for surfing. There is a gravel bar on Lake Coeur d'Alene (in Idaho about 40 miles east of Spokane, WA) where boaters have to make a dogleg turn to continue up or down the lake. I've spent hours on this gravel bar surfing first in one direction and then in the other. One day I had the owners of the multi-million dollar home on the point next to the gravel bar standing on their lawn watching me. They later told me they had no idea kayaks could surf. C'mon Summer!!!!! Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA www.nwkayaking.net *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jan 11 2010 - 08:45:15 PST
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