My First Day Driving a SeaDoo

The exciting news is that I passed my online boater's certification two days ago, which meant that I got to drive a SeaDoo by myself today. The water was perfect for SeaDoo-ing, which means it was a might bit choppy, which in turn meant slightly scary for me on my first time out. That's okay, though. I didn't fall off, I didn't flip, and I didn't lose any limbs while I was out for that hour. Okay, I was probably only out for 5 minutes, but it felt much longer.

I took a break, dried off on the beach, and watched as Chad and Kieffer went out. Chad drives fast, and is reasonably good at catching the waves, so that was exciting to watch. When they got back we heard the harrowing story of how Kieffer had fallen off of the SeaDoo and Chad didn't notice until 2 waves later when he looked back and said, "Oh look, no Kieffer". Chad reclaimed Keiffer from the lake, and they came back in to shore.

Then I decided I would give it another go. Life jacket buckled, glasses attached to a holding-on necklace, and gloves protecting my hands, I mounted the little yellow SeaDoo, started the engine, and proceeded to drive. And then the Lake came after me. Angered that Kieffer hadn't been left as a sacrifice, the Lake sent a mighty wave to splash me, stealing my glasses over the top of my head as an offering. As I noticed that things were mysteriously blurry, I looked in the water, then at the back of the SeaDoo, in the hopes of recovering my glasses. And while I was busy looking, the Lake sent another mighty wave, flipping the SeaDoo and tossing me into the water.

I knew that there was a sticker somewhere on the bottom of the boat that would tell me which direction I should turn it to flip it upright, but amidst the continual bombardment of waves pushing the SeaDoo and me toward the beach (but the wrong direction from the Hendrickson beach), I couldn't find it. Turns out the sticker is on the back of the boat, not on the bottom proper.

Tom came running and helped me flip the machine upright, then went to park it on the beach. And then we began our quest, searching up and down the beach for any trace of my sand-brown frames with blue necklace attached, but found no trace of them. The up-side is that I have a spare pair, which I'm wearing now. But I think I've had enough SeaDoo-ing for a little while now.

And thus went the early afternoon of our last day in Michigan. We leave the house early tomorrow morning to catch the ferry, then drive hours and hours back to Minnesota. I'll miss it here.