Wakeboarding

Since I want to get to know new things here I took part in the wakeboard initiation of the wakeboarding club of NTU. Yeah it's right - there is a sports club at NTU for wakeboarding! I tried water skiing some years ago and it was a great fun - so I really liked to try this out. Wakeboarding with frieds is even more fun, that's why we went there as a group of five - so we could get a whole boat for us.

The yacht club where the wakeboarding took place is in the North of Singapore. So went to Sembawang MRT station and from there we were fetched by a small bus. Having arrived we got a short explanation how wakeboarding works - and how not. Then we boarded the boat and the fun could begin. The weather could have been better - but we didn't let as disencourage by such a minor issue. At first we got a short demonstration by a club member how wakeboarding should look like... then it was up to us:

First you had to squeeze your feet into the bindings of the wakeboard and put on an a life vest, then take the rope and get ready to start. You start cowering in the water with the face to boat (of course). Then the boat accelerates and you start to be pulled out of the water. I sounds really easy but all of us needed a few tries to get a feeling for the balance. Once you are out of the water you can try to stand up and get in a snowboard like riding position. After that you can start with tricks like 180's, nose grabs, backflips, ... or just fall in to the water at the next little wave... If you want to judge the needed amount of concentration I just refer to my face... But its definitely fun to slide on the water with a board under your feet and a boat pulling you. At the end of the day all of us agreed that we have to do it again.

A very good thing was that Darren, a member of the NTU wakeboard club, was with his nice camera (Canon EOS D5 /w 400mm(!) zoom lense) on our boat. So we have some excellent pictures of our first wakebording experience. This time I uploaded the pictures without resizing them - it would have been a sacrilege. So enjoy the pictures!