Ahh, the jet skis. They’re invariably the highlight of our friends’ visits here, and our time with the kids was no exception. Alex, Kyra, and Kaitlyn have all been here in previous summers and had their turns with the jet skis, but other than our trip to Cancun, I’m not sure Zack’s been on one. He warmed to it pretty quickly.
Since Flathead Lake is so big, if we want to do more than cruise around Yellow Bay, we need to take the jet skis. The kids and I decided to go cliff-jumping at some rocks across the lake. It’s about seven miles as the crow flies (or the jet ski jets, I guess) so we headed out. Although he was new to driving, Zack did a good job and he and Alex tested some different ways to ride together.
Kyra and I were on the other one:
The cliff jumping was a hoot. It doesn’t look very high from the water, but believe me, when you’re standing at the edge of the rock, fifteen feet feels like fifty. We all did a few “wimpy” jumps and then graduated to some higher spots along the cliff. Here’s Zack about to do twenty feet:
Back at Yellow Bay, we pulled out the tube. By law, if you’re towing someone in a tube behind a boat or jet ski, you’re supposed to have a “spotter” on the back watching whoever’s in the water. Obviously it’s for safety, but our jet skis aren’t very powerful so having two people on them, plus a person being towed, means it’s difficult to maneuver. Smaller kids are fine, but all of us are adults and it just wasn’t very fun. So, we threw safety out the window and went with one driver, one in the tube, and a “chaser” who was on the other jet ski watching for problems. It worked well, and it led to hours upon hours of fun.
Here’s Julian pulling Zack:
And a little while later, here’s Zack getting his revenge on Julian:
After a day on the water, we noticed Trixie (Pepper’s jet ski) was a little sluggish. You’d punch the throttle– as you should always do on these things– but she wouldn’t zip up to speed. On a hunch, back home I peeked at the wear ring and saw that it had been destroyed. At some point we must have sucked up a rock or a twig. Fortunately the wear ring gave way, as it’s designed to do, and didn’t hurt the engine. But it meant some repairs. One morning Julian and I grabbed a socket set and disassembled the jet nozzle area.
We popped a new wear ring into place (always have a spare!) and Trixie was as good as new. We took her out to confirm she worked, and I got a great shot of Julian zipping past:
Time for more tubing! Even Kaitlyn got in on the action, squealing with delight (yes, squealing) as Kyra whipped her across the bay. Julian had his GoPro with him, and managed to capture some awesome footage of the action– including a few glorious wipeouts.
At times I’ve wondered whether jet skis were worth the investment all those years ago, but when we have days like this, I know they were.