boating story from the weekend

[GoVols01]

Took our boat out to the lake for Mother’s Day and was surprised to see how many boats were on the lake – almost like Memorial or Labor Day! When doing water sports, I always stay in a cove somewhere away from the main channels and boats that are rafting-up. There were many boats out, so private coves were in short supply, so I had to share a giant cove with several other water sports boaters. I ended up pulling the wife and kids behind our boat for several hours on our new Zup Board and the inner tube. During the day, I was irked several times by idiots that weren’t watching all the traffic and avoiding crossing paths with me while I was towing or while they were towing. The crowning moment for the day was when we packed it all up and were heading back to the ramp. Some idiot was pulling 4 kids on a big inner tube down the main channel with tons of traffic going everywhere. Inevitably, the inner tube hit a wake and one of his kids flew off the inner tube into the water directly in my path! I saw the guy well in-advance of the incident and began to throttle down even before the kid fell off. If I hadn’t of anticipated this, it might have been a different story I’d be telling you today.


Bottom line, DON’T do watersports in the main channel or high traffic areas of the lake!

 

[captras]

One of the great things about our lake is that it is huge and not crowded. ...although a lot more boaters than 19 years ago when we bought the property! There are still idiots, just the idiot per water acre is low!

 

[cozilla]

Took our boat out to the lake for Mother’s Day and was surprised to see how many boats were on the lake – almost like Memorial or Labor Day! When doing water sports, I always stay in a cove somewhere away from the main channels and boats that are rafting-up. There were many boats out, so private coves were in short supply, so I had to share a giant cove with several other water sports boaters. I ended up pulling the wife and kids behind our boat for several hours on our new Zup Board and the inner tube. During the day, I was irked several times by idiots that weren’t watching all the traffic and avoiding crossing paths with me while I was towing or while they were towing. The crowning moment for the day was when we packed it all up and were heading back to the ramp. Some idiot was pulling 4 kids on a big inner tube down the main channel with tons of traffic going everywhere. Inevitably, the inner tube hit a wake and one of his kids flew off the inner tube into the water directly in my path! I saw the guy well in-advance of the incident and began to throttle down even before the kid fell off. If I hadn’t of anticipated this, it might have been a different story I’d be telling you today.


Bottom line, DON’T do watersports in the main channel or high traffic areas of the lake!

I see this all the time and it scares the crap out of me. The scenario you speak of is exactly why I will never pull anyone in the main channel on a busy day.

 

[scokill]

This is the reason we go on weekday late afternoon/evenings and earlier in the morning on weekends to do water sports. If it's crowded and safety is compromised to any degree, we will pack watersports up and go anchor and hang out. If we know it will be crowded...like a holiday, we will just anchor and float and have a good time without doing any water sports.