Tubing

If you're lucky enough to own a boat, or have access to a boat, or even a personal water craft, then you've got to try riding an inner tube. It's exhilarating! It's fast! It's brutal! Skimming just inches above the water at 40 plus miles-an-hour is an incredible rush. It's the best time I ever had out on the water. Let me explain - and by the way, since I don't have any of my own photos, I scoured the Internet and found some great photos taken by Tim Walker that capture the intensity of tubing. I also found a video posted on YouTube featuring Evan Woodruff and Zac Gardener as the tubers. These two guys take a beautiful seven minute ride, captured on video by Katie Geldart. They've obviously been tubing for quite some time. Hang on!

The first time I pulled myself up on a tube was in the early seventies. I was young. I was fearless. And I liked to go fast. Back then we rode car tubes. Yeah, back when car tires required tubes, like a bicycle. We preferred car tubes (over truck tubes) as they were smaller and easier to handle when things started getting hairy out on the water. It was just the tube rider, the black rubber car tube (which was covered with white powdery stuff to facilitate easier inflation inside a tire, which gave you a really nasty rash across your chest and legs), and the rope. Handles you say? No, there weren't no handles. You just kind of wrapped your arms around the tube, like you were hugging it, pulling it up tight to your chest. The only handle was the one dragging in the water right below where your head hung out over the front of the tube, splashing water in your face, because we just jury rigged a regular 75 foot ski rope to the tube, handle and all. I said I was young and fearless, and did I mention stupid. Eventually, after going through too many car tubes cause they all wound up looking like hour glasses where the rope squeezed them to death, we found better ways to attach rope to tube. But nowadays, tubing is much safer. You can go out and buy a package deal that includes the tube, a nylon tube cover with handles and soft, cushy padding, and a towing rope that attaches directly to the nylon tube cover. I wish we had this kind of gear when I was a kid. I wouldn't have got so beaten up, and would have never gotten those nasty rashes.

Anyway, we had some neighbors across the cove from us, Chip Perry and his father, Colonel Perry. These guys were truly lake veterans. They came down to the lake (Lake of the Ozarks) every weekend like most of us did, and during the summer months they virtually lived at the lake. Chip had been water skiing for so long he could ski on a piece of drift wood if he felt like it. He once showed me how to ski on a canoe paddle, no joke. He was the best skier I ever saw.

So one day Chip waved me over and had me jump in the Speedliner as the Colonel backed it out of the dock. As usual, Chip would be standing on the dock looking entirely to casual, waiting patiently while the ski rope started to uncoil in the water as the Colonel idled the Speedliner away from the dock. Chip never, ever started in the water. It didn't matter if he was going skiing or tubing. This practice had started years earlier when Chip decided he wanted to ski, but didn't necessarily want to get wet above the ankles. The Colonel would start easing the throttle forward as the rope fed out, and just before it had uncoiled to its full length, he'd hammer the throttle handle all the way forward and Chip would fly off the dock, his arms wrapped around the black tube pumped so full of air it was hard as a rock. He hit the water and off we'd go.

First the Colonel would take Chip down a very large, and very deep cove, giving Chip an opportunity to settle in, preparing himself for what was to come. He could go up and down the wake at will. Usually he'd just park himself in that spot right at the bottom of the wake, between the churned up water behind the boat, and the ultra smooth water out to the side of the boat. Did I mention we did this early in the morning when the water is so smooth it looked like glass? We also tubed early in the morning to minimize the danger from other boats. The Speedliner the Perry's owned would top out at forty-seven miles an hour, but the Colonel would always pull us at a comfortable thirty-two. We reached the end of the cove, and the Colonel would start making the large sweeping turn to the left, pushing forward on the throttle handle so the speed wouldn't fall off, enabling Chip and tube to edge out into the perfectly smooth water. You see, you didn't just throw Chip outside the wake. He gave you his permission to do so. Now at this point, most people new to tubing started to develop the "what have I gotten myself into" symptoms. Their eyes started to go wide. You could see their lips moving, but never hear them. In desperation they'd pull themselves down onto the tube, as if trying to become one with it. But that just lowered the center of gravity and increased their speed. Then they start to drag their feet in the water, thinking it would slow them down, but by then it was too late. They'd look at the boat one last time and see the predatory look on the Colonel's face, and then they'd know. Like a bolt of lighting hit them, they'd know what was going to happen. The Colonel would check his surroundings one last time, to insure nothing horrible would happen to the tuber, like hitting a dock, or the shore, and then turn around laughing as the tuber found out what it feels like to be a stone skipping across a pond.

Chip never shouted though. Least, not like most people. His shouting was more like that of a great warrior in battle. Bring it on, yeah! That the best you got! Smiling from ear to ear he'd pull up on the right side of the tube, leaving only a sliver of the left side in contact with the water, and at the same time he'd move to the left side of the tube. This did three things. It would concentrate all of his weight on a single tiny area of the tube, insure he would not fall off the leading edge of the tube should things go bad, and instantly accelerate him clear out to the side of the boat. Beautiful. It was like turning on the afterburner in a jet. How fast did he go? I don't know, maybe fifty, sixty miles and hour. Fast enough to get your blood pumping. Ten minutes later, after going up and down the cove in a series of graceful right and left turns, giving Chip a very good ride, the Colonel stopped the boat, turned to me with that predatory look, and told me to jump in.

I did, pulled myself up on the tube and had the time of my life. Over the course of the summer, and the following summers, I too became very proficient at tubing. I would ride anytime, anywhere. There's all kinds of ways to tube you know. Single rider tubing. Two rider tubing. Three people can climb up on a very large tube. You can tube in rough and punishing water. You can pull two or even three tubes at once. With these new tubes you can do rolls and all kinds of crazy stuff. I remember one of the Colonel's favorite things to do was pull Chip and I tubing out in the main channel, where it was incredibly rough, and totally unforgiving. I remember one time the Speedliner hit a large cruiser wake so hard, the throttle handle fell off in the Colonel's lap. It was hilarious. He had a heck of a time bringing the boat to a stop that day. He'd pull us in a continuous circle till one of us fell off. The man absolutely would not stop until both of us were really hurting, but what a blast it was.

Still, it was the early morning rides that were the best. Blasting down the cove behind the boat in the sweet spot just at the bottom of the wake; bubbling, churning water to my left, smooth water to my right. And like some slow motion sequence in a movie I would see the fog still drifting along the shoreline, partially cloaking the boat docks. The little fishing boats trolling from one fishing spot to another, leaving behind little wakes I knew I would later cross over. There was the sound of the inboard/outboard, a high pitched whining, but it seemed distant, not real. And then, as if awakened from a dream, the moment would come, the sound of the engine now piercing, I'd allow myself to be pulled out from the sweet spot onto the perfectly smooth water by pulling up on the right side of the tube and moving to my left, just as Chip had taught me, and then I'd be flying. Glorious! I miss that, I really do.

I don't remember ever getting hurt while tubing. Sore, yes, but never hurt. The Colonel was a good boat driver. Always on the look out for potential hazards, be they the shoreline, docks, other boats, ski ropes, driftwood, or other floating objects. Tubing requires common sense, both on the part of the driver, and the tuber. So if you ever get the opportunity to go tubing, go for it. I guarantee you a good time.