Kite Tubing: The New Extreme Sport

[Pangloss62]

My father, a cultural elitist, indoctrinated me and my siblings into the "motorboats are bad" school of thought. He saw them as both environmentally damaging and tacky; a real man paddles a canoe. Accordingly, he took us on canoe camping trips that remain highlights in my memories of youth. As I grew older, I carried this anti-motorboat attitude with me, scowling at them and their usually drunk drivers as their wakes buffeted my canoe. Then one weekend a friend invited me to go water-skiing; you can't water-ski with a canoe. Yes. I had fun. Still hated motorboats, but I did have fun.

I guess it's the attitude of some motorboaters that bugs me; to look at a big lake as merely a surface upon which to play and have fun; and to hell with the fish, birds, and other people who don't like it! Then there are those giant, booze-soaked spectacles where people just tie up their boats together and find ways to "hook up" with similarly drunk people. Whatever. Most big "party lakes" aren't real lakes anyway, their impoundments. I suppose we can let motorboaters have a few of them. And hell, with that new guy running DOI, maybe they'll be able to have even more fun:

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary...s/060612roco01

Having said that, if I was invited to go kite tubing, I'm sure I would try it at least once. Hey, KV, can one fly, say, at about 50 feet, and just kinda jump off the tube and perform a twisted, improvisational dive into the lake?