I’m sore. Sore in places I didn’t know could be sore. The palms of my hands, the insides of my elbows, the backsides of my eyes. My anatomy is the voodoo doll version of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
It hurts to type. My head only moves with the aid of my entire aching torso. Yawning stings.
I am, for the moment, crippled, unable to step outside the circle of soreness to perform even the most basic functions after playing tug of war for hours yesterday with a 375-horsepower engine. Tomorrow, I fear, will be worse.
I’d like to think we battled to a stalemate, the engine pulling hard against the rope as I fought to hang on and harness the power through a controlled skid over the surface of the lake. And although I doubt the boat feels as bad as I do today, I’m confident it didn’t have as much fun in the crippling process.
If boats had a sense of humor, however, I’m sure this sadistic vessel would have had more than its share of laughs at my expense. The slalom skiing went fine, the wakeboarding better than expected, even the wake skate showed promise, but somehow that wasn’t enough.
Exposed to a brave new world of modern wake-riding equipment, somehow I felt compelled to strap myself into the electric chair of motor-towed toys – the Sky Ski hydrofoil chair – a veritable pain-production factory disguised as an aquatic accessory.
It’s true the crashes themselves don’t generate much in the way of genuine anguish. But I’m blaming the pain, all the way up to my eyeballs, on the sheer volume and variety of beatings suffered while being dragged across the pond strapped to this unwieldy contraption.
Learning to ride the Sky Ski is like astronaut training after having your inner ears removed. I was bucked, hucked and shucked like a soggy rodeo clown, water shoved back through my tear ducts faster than I could cry. Back flops, belly-flops, headstands and skull slaps are all part of the learning process. Everything, it seems, but actually sitting up on the so-called ski.
Fleeting though they were, there were moments of glory. Seconds, actually, and always less than 10 at a time. For short spells I could feel the ski surfing across the water’s surface, then slowly rise up on the hydrofoil extending some 4 feet beneath the seat. After that, all bets were off. The slightest weight shift either ejected the ski out of the water in a flailing barrel roll or sent it diving into the lake like a drunken porpoise attempting an elusive triple lindy. More like liquor itself, the Sky Ski goes down easy enough, but comes back up hard and fast. It is suffering with a smile.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The transition to skimming across the water in a seated position was expected to be a simple transfer of skills, like going from surfing to skateboarding, or Pamela Anderson to Carmen Electra.
Board sports phenom Shaun White recently explained how the transition between snowboarding and skateboarding was easy for him because he’s so comfortable in the sideways stance. His family makes fun of him when he’s standing still, shoulders hunched, left foot forward like he’s about to drop into a halfpipe and toss a McTwist, but then trips attempting to walk up the stairs.
I’m the same when it comes to sitting. It’s what I do. Whether it is driving a car, riding a motorcycle or parking my carcass at a desk for hours on end, I know how to take a load off. Surfing the couch comes naturally enough. Surfing the Sky Ski ought to be a cinch.
Truth be told, I do spend an inordinate amount of time dissecting the finer nuances of hydroplaning from a seated position. As a kayaker, I anticipated a transition to the Sky Ski as easy as falling down a flight of stairs. Never mind that I live in a ground-level apartment.
As it turns out, the transfer of skills felt more like going from bungee jumping to BASE jumping. Remove the potential for death and dismemberment, and the two don’t really have that much in common. But I stuck it out as long as patience would allow, clinging to the rubber-handled rope until my shoulders were stretched in their sockets and fighting for a toehold on this space-age sport.
When the final bell rang, the decision was split: a tie between the agony and amusement of my defeat. I feel like I just went 10 rounds with the champ.
But I’m already looking forward to a rematch.
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
