M - Tubin' on Arcadia

While I hope we get to go again, Noah and I had a great time playing at Arcadia this summer. In addition to swimming in different places around the lake, we added a tube to our repertoire this year.

Dana found this tube at a garage sale. Normally these things are quite expensive but this one had a big tear in the cover that filled up with water when pulled behind a boat. I have access to LOTS of industrial sewing equipment at work so I figured there was a good chance I could make a solid repair. Considering I only paid $5 for it, and it works like a charm, I'd say it was quite a bargain.

Here is Noah waiting to start for the first time out. We worked out a few hand signals prior to just jumping right in. I was a little hesitant to turn him loose out on the lake behind the boat for the first time, not knowing how he'd react. We had three hand signals, thumb up for faster, thumb down for slower, and a fist in the air to stop. Of course...I should have known. The only signal he cared anything about was 'go faster.'

Every time I looked back, which was frequently, he had one hand on the strap and the other hand up in the air giving me a thumbs up. In fact, he just left it there, signaling me to go faster. I was already going about 20mph and he was bouncing all over the place when we hit the waves. The kid is fearless. Finally, I told him I'd go as fast or slow as I wanted and we narrowed the hand signal offering to one - STOP. He's still never used that one.

Occasionally, even the most die-hard boaters need to eat.














Hauling the massive tube around the lake is a bit of a challenge. We still haven't figued out the very best way but this one isn't bad.














Here is Noah flying across the water about 30mph. At one point in a big turn, the tube caught some wind underneath, he came up off the water about 4 feet, and the tube literally turned perpendicular to the surface of the water while flying up in the air. I thought sure he was going to flip upside down and that one would scare him into submission. I let off the throttle, he floated back down right-side up and was ready for more.











Here is some shaky video of the action.