Went to ponggol marina with mingchang for the wakeboarding intro course today. Hah finally somewhere near my house! Course was organised by NUS wakeboard club, and quite a few experienced wakeboarders came down to coach us. Not bad. Got briefed on how to hold the handle, how to plane the board on the water, how to slowly squat then stand up.. lotsa theory, but when you actually do it, you juz do wad seems to be natural. But of course, should follow the basics. It looks hard enough. The first time I tried, I couldn't even get the board out of the water. Would either fall flat in front or backwards. And I still clung onto the rope! Not supposed to do that, I learnt later. Otherwise my arms would fly off my shoulders. Muz have fallen at least 6 times before I finally managed to squat, stand on the board, and turn the board. And then I tried to balance. Doing well. 30 s.. 1 min.. 2 min! Proud of myself. Haha the feeling was damn shuangz.. the power boat pulling so fast, gliding on the water. But frankly most of the time I was trying to balance, but I think I inadvertently crossed the wake to outside, without knowing. First attempt only, so I wanted to avoid the wake as far as possible.. but wakeboarding you're supposed to ride up the wake. Mebbe next time. Exhausting.. need to use arm and back strength. When I finally fell, it was such a hard fall forward that my board flew off my feet. Heh.
My master foot should be my right foot, but I juz feel more comfortable placing it behind and placing my left foot in front. Strange. Anyway mingchang did very well. Think he had the most water time among us. Shared the boat with 2 others from engin.. quite nice people. Pity no one wanted to learn.. this thing is thrilling! And riding in a small boat out in the open water with 3 other people is sensational. We had refreshments after that. Man.. we kept attacking the chicken wings.
Me trying to slowly get up.. lest I turn turtle again
Up and riding!
Other boats. There were 10 boats today.
Such a serene place.. It's off seletar harbour.
