The day the jet ski flipped

One of our Georgia youth trips was to New Orleans.

One day, the girls went into the city to explore and the guys had a day on the water.  The next day we switched.  There was to be tubing, pontooning and jet skiing.

While the guys were on the water, Luke and I decided to take the jet ski out.  The water was pretty still that day, if I remember correctly, so we had to make our own fun.  It was a big two person jet ski and we found that if we got our speed up pretty high and then cut the handlebars hard to the right, the rear end would swing around and we would skip sideways across the water’s surface.

Occasionally, we would “catch” on the water and the machine would throw us pretty forcefully onto the lake.  It was great fun.  Until the jet ski tipped over.

Now, my friend Roy had invited us down.  We were staying with his parents and using all of their equipment.  Roy had been an amazing host and had only given us one rule: do not roll the jet ski.

We obeyed that rule.  We didn’t roll the jet ski, it rolled on its own.  As soon as we surfaced, Luke and I flipped it back upright.  It couldn’t have been upside down for more than ten seconds.  Once upright, we started it back up and rode it on in.

Later in the day, someone tried to use it, but it wasn’t running right.  It was running fine when Luke and I brought it in and now it wasn’t.

Roy immediately blamed me for the machine not running right.  He still blames me to this day.  It is one of those things where you are falsely accused and have to live with it.

Last summer, Winston was riding my friend Jere Lipnick’s jet ski off of porpoise point in St. Augustine, Florida.  It quit running while he was riding it.  Jere couldn’t get it started again.  It had to go into the shop for repair.

Winston had nothing to do with this issue either.

But I bet Roy would blame him for it.