Senior Year Box Set

The boat had two seats facing backward, so Camilla and I could act as spotters in case one of them fell into the water. I found my bag and pulled out my camera. I’d been remiss yesterday in not having it with me. Of course, I could have used my phone, but I liked the quality the camera gave me. Some of the views from the tops of the hills were breathtaking. I wanted to get pictures of the Greek island from the water and capture the action as the twins were pulled behind the boat.

I was just in time to capture a shot of sheer terror on Nat’s face the first time her tube hit a wave and caught some air. When she realized that she hadn’t died, the fear was replaced with pure joy.

The twins lasted about forty-five minutes before they wanted a break.

“You want to go tubing?” I asked Camilla.

“No, not really. Why don’t we try wakeboarding?”

After we recovered the twins, Kostas pulled in one of the ropes. He had me sit on the floor of the boat as he made sure my feet fit correctly into the wakeboard. The board reminded me of a snowboard. Kostas next had me pull my knees up and tilt the board up so my toes were higher than my heels.

“You sit in the water like that to start. Once the boat pulls you out of the water, you drop your toes and twist your hips,” he explained. “If you don’t pop up right away, let go of the rope.”

“Why would he do that?” Nat asked.

“Water can shoot up his bum. That’s when we have a real mess,” Kostas said with some authority.

From the way he spoke, I could tell it had happened before, so I took his caution seriously.

“Have you ever been snowboarding or surfing?” Kostas asked.

“I’ve done both, actually. And waterskiing.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble with this.”

With that note of encouragement, I jumped into the water, swam out to the end of the rope, and put on the wakeboard. Finally, I signaled I was ready. I was happy when I got right up. I twisted my body and must have put too much pressure on my front foot because the tip of the board dipped under the water, and I did a face-plant.

The good part about doing this in the water instead of a ski hill was it didn’t take any skin off. That didn’t mean that smacking face-first into the Aegean Sea couldn’t be painful. I vowed I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I gave the boat a thumbs-up to signal that I was okay. Kostas circled them around so I could give it another try.

“I’ll take it easy until you get the hang of it,” he assured me as they motored past.

The next time, I got up and used even pressure on the board. When I was sure I was stable, I began testing what I could do. Kostas was right; this was similar to surfing. When I felt confident, I pointed to the sky to let them know I was ready to go faster.

Since I was an adrenaline junkie, I waited until we sped up, then leaned over and shot off to the side of the boat. I found myself almost even with the back of the boat, off to the side. I coasted out there for a moment until the rope tugged on me as it caught up. Leaning the other way, I put up a massive wall of water as I dug in to turn. I rocketed towards the wake, and when I hit it, I caught some air.

I suddenly had a new goal: to see if I could completely jump the wake on both sides. To do that, I would need to catch some serious air. This time, instead of coasting for a moment, I never let the rope go slack as I made a hard turn back toward the other direction.

I was glad to see Camilla had my camera out and was catching the action. I would have to send some pics out on my social media later.

This time, I hit the wake, and it launched me into the air. I almost made it to the other side.

It took me a few tries before I finally cleared the other wake on a run. I had noticed that if I dug my heel in a bit before I hit the wake, it would give me more air. I wondered if I could do a flip. On the next run, I put my half-baked plan into action. To do the flip, I would have to do a full 360-degree rotation. I did about 345. Camilla caught the picture of me hitting the water; it was a spectacular crash. That one smarted.

When the boat came around, Nat was bouncing up and down, and Alex looked every bit as excited.

“My turn!” Nat announced.

If she didn’t look so cute in her excitement, I would have stayed out and accomplished my new goal. Both Nat and Alex, living in LA for school, had been surfing, so they took to wakeboarding right away. I will say that Nat was tougher than I expected because she crashed more than once but bounced right back.

Alex tried to mimic what I’d done with jumping the wake. He finally figured it out and was soon flying through the air. I got some fantastic pictures.

Finally, it was my turn again.

“Don’t go quite so fast and arch your back more,” Kostas suggested.

That actually made a lot of sense, so I tried it. To my utter surprise, it worked. I had to chuckle when I saw the twins standing in the back of the boat, cheering my success. Once I had puzzled it out, I was able to duplicate my flip.