A memorable Surfin Trip


This past Friday I set up a trip to Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World. Yes, they let you surf there. You can rent the park either before or after they close and jack up a performance wave that is about head high. I had 10 friends lined up for a 5pm start. Beth,myself and surf bud Thompy Taylor were going down in my truck with 3 longboards straped down on the back. Remember this was Friday....the coldest/windiest day so far this year. As we are going over the Buckman bridge we start getting some serious wind and the boards start bobbing up and down in the back. I started slowing down...but to late. The tip of my 9-5 McTavish surftech lifts up and the fact that I'm doing 70mph stands it on end and rips it off the rack sending it cartwheeling down I-295. I watch in horror as it tumbles end over end narrowly missing a doughnut truck and two buddies in the truck behind us. It eventually skids to a stop in the emergency lane so I pull over and run back up the bridge to pick up the pieces. Remember this is the Buckman bridge....a certified NASCAR training site. I get to the board and pick up the board bag and shake it...no rattle, thats a good sign I'm thinking. The wind has to be 30mph up on the top of the span and I have to carry the board back down the bridge next to the concrete retaining wall so the wind doesn't lift us both up and over the the edge into the river. Did I mention just how high up that bridge is . We muscle the board back into the truck and exit the pits at full speed to merge into traffic. I don't have time to go back and get my other board so we just drive on. When we get to the Goon in Orlando my brother-in-law Robert video's the opening of the really beat upboard bag. Amazingly , there is not a scratch or ding on the board, just a ground flat edge on the cutaway fin. I can't believe it. We meet up with Doug Dumont the head guy at the Goon and he set us up. The pool was heated to about 80 degrees and they put a 600,000,000 btu heater blowing on us. We had 100 wave in 3 hours, doing the center peak wave we had 2 guys on each wave so we didn't have to wait to long between rides. Beth was shooting the video from the point and was the real star because she about froze in the wind.
All in all it was a great trip, even with such a rough start. I'm now completely sold on surftechs (epoxy/not fiberglass) my Yater spoon fiberglass board would have been a box of cracker jacks after that trip.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sounds like quite the experience. Nice pix! Will you post any video?? I'd like to see some of it.

KarenV
4:56 AM
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