Everyone’s seen the pictures. Wakeboarding is a cool sport for cool people, so straight away we knew we didn’t fit the bill. We hadn’t grasped the physics of wearing a floatable device, i.e. the wakeboard, on our feet, so when water sports instructor Domie urged us into the water, we grabbed on tight to the side of the jetty as our legs swung up behind us. ‘Relax! Let go! Don’t panic! STOP PANICKING!’ yelled Domie frantically as we flailed and gasped as though we’d just walked the plank. Eventually, gravity tipped us on to our back like a dying beetle and we realised we were floating comfortably. ‘There you go,’ said Domie, obviously wondering what on earth he was in for. ‘You’ll have to pay careful attention to my instructions when we’re further out,’ he added, slowly and carefully. ‘Just do as I say, and you won’t turn into a human submarine. Just do as I tell you. Got that?’ We did.
His instructions were fairly simple: Keep your knees bent, balance yourself with a little more weight on the front leg, hold tight, arms straight, and don’t pull the rope, let it pull you. None of that made much sense until he started the boat. The rope sprang taut, and everything fell into place. By an amazing stroke of beginner’s luck we managed to get straight up and, almost before we knew what was happening, we were flying top speed across the water. It didn’t last long of course. There’s a definite Peter Pan technique to wakeboarding to begin with, in that you can only do it as long as you’re thinking positively. We were feeling pretty good after a few minutes of skimming across the waves and looked up at Domie, who was waving and whooping: ‘I am so happy for you! You are wakeboarding now!’ We looked down at the board crashing through the sea, our nerve and balance disappeared simultaneously, our face smacked the water. Make no mistake, this hurts a lot. The salt water burns your nose and throat, and the impact is like being punched in the head. But Domie brought the boat round before we had too long to feel sorry for ourselves and after a couple of false starts we were up again and working on controlling our movements better.
Domie is from the Philippines, and has been teaching wakeboarding, along with a long list of other watersports, for a few years, although at age 50 he says he prefers driving the boat to wakeboarding now. For someone who doesn’t practise the sport often, he’s full of tips and hints for improving technique, and spotted all our mistakes almost as soon as we began to make them. Unfortunately, it was hard to hear his advice over the din of the engine and the splashing water, so when he pointed at a giant wave and yelled something, we crashed again, this time tumbling right off the wakeboard. He drove over and told us cheerily: ‘I said, don’t look at the wave, or you’ll fall!’ Right. Got it. We watched blearily through stinging eyes as he followed up with an impression of us seeing the wave and freaking out, sticking our bum out in an attempt to regain balance and crashing down. Hilarious. Our good humour fading fast, and muscles starting to tremble, we decided to call it a day, so Domie drove us back to the beach, telling us how quickly it’s possible to learn all the snazzy wakeboarding tricks and jumps the pros do. And, in spite of the fact our arms felt like wet spaghetti and, three days later, we still can’t form a fist, the idea of somersaulting remains oddly tempting. We may become one of the cool people yet. Dhs55 for two rounds of wakeboarding – about 10 minutes.
Beach Club, Beach Rotana, Tourist Club Area (02 697 0272)
