Emily and I went to Harrison Lake for our August public holiday (British Columbia Day). Most of the afternoon was spent lazing around the beach and checking out a local waterfall. We decided to end the day with a 1 hour Sea-Doo rental, riding together. The "driver" sits in front, while the "passenger" sits behind and holds onto a little strap attached to the seat for dear life.
The first 45 minutes went great. Emily was the first in control, and immediately pushed the Sea-Doo to top-speed, skipping across the lake as fast as possible. I got my turn after about 10 minutes and did much the same, though I kept braking suddenly making Emily crash into my back a number of times. Towards the end of our rental I was trying out other moves, like spinning in circles or weaving left-then-right. And that's where things came a little loose. Literally.
As she tells it:
To stay on the sea-doo, I had to lean left or right depending on which way we were turning. If I leaned the wrong way by accident, I would actually get extra swing from centripetal force and wouldn't be able to stay on properly. This got kinda tricky when P went crazy doing his little circles. He would spin one way and then, without warning, start turning in the other direction. In one of his longer circles, I was leaning in the right direction (possibly too much) and he turned in the other direction. The fact that I was leaning one way and then all of a sudden flung in the same direction I was leaning, I went *whoop* and felt myself flying. I saw the sky and thought "CRAP! HOLD BREATH NOW!" and plunge! I went straight into the icy cold water. I open my eyes and thought "light! swim that way!" Head popped out of the water, could breathe and not sink thanks to my little PFD (Personal Floating Device). I always thought they were tacky.. but boy I was glad I had mines on tight!
In the signed agreements it says "don't turn your seadoo on until all the riders are aboard." So P is sitting there waiting patiently for me to swim over to him. I attempt to swim... against the waves and make absolutely *no* progress. I give up and just float as he slowly putt putt putts the sea-doo closer to me. I try climbing on but can't without losing my flip flops so I take them off carefully and hand them to P. (I don't know why I was so scared of losing them..) Anyways, I finally clamber back on board and we slowly drive back to the dock.
So I went on this day trip thinking I wouldn't get too wet so I didn't have to worry about bringing another set of clothes... BAD idea when it's around water. After that splash, I was wet from head to toe. Everything down to the "unmentionables". Luckily, P had a (clean) set of unmentionables! Well, the bottom bit.... So I had no other choice but to suck it up and try it out.
As he tells it:
I was weaving left-then-right, and hitting the throttle at the same time. After a particular hard turn, I sensed something was wrong behind me, like the jetski was a little lighter. I glanced down to my right, and just see a thong, a leg, and a head disappearing into the water. Oops.
Emily came back to the surface thanks to her life-jacket. I killed the engine as we'd been instructed and waited for her to swim over. Unfortunately, Harrison Lake is glacier-fed so it's quite cold. She'd also just been thrown off a Sea-Doo at high speed, and was swimming against the current, so didn't seem that eager to swim the entire distance back. I powered the engine back up and slowly putted over so that (a shivering) Emily could clamber back on board.
After a few checks for injuries and shock, we started making our way back to shore. We maintained a cruising speed on our home journey; nothing excessive, and definitely no turns. The wind managed to dry Emily off a bit, which was fortunate. About halfway back she realised she'd been wearing sunglasses and they were now "lost at sea". All things considered, we're lucky there wasn't more lost! She was certainly worried about her thongs. :)
That night, we had Red Robin for dinner. My shout. We've already established that Emily likes Freckled Lemonades from there. I think there's still a bit of making up to do. :)
Positive thing from all this: Emily can now work away her raccoon tan without those sunglasses!
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