Lived on the water since I was 12. Summers were spent fishing, water skiing and chasing girls. A zillion years later I rode my brother Mark's Ultra 150 and thought that was pretty darn cool, and was telling my brother Dave how much I enjoyed it. He said "if you want to know what real fun is, wait here". He came back with his modded out 750SX. I got on that thing thinking I was gonna kill myself because I was 40 yrs old, but I took to it pretty naturally maybe because of all my years waterskiing. Loved it. Scanned Craigslist that same night and came to the realization that standups are a pretty rare commodity up here in the Northeast. Finally found a 1998 SXIPro for sale in Connecticut, and drove 3 hours down and bought it. Added some handling mods because that thing porpoised like crazy and had fun on that thing for two years but decided an SJ was a better route for me to go for what I wanted to be doing. Back to Craigslist, only to realize that finding a nice modded SJ up here is pretty much impossible. Finally found one for sale here on the 'X' by a member named Polar Bear. Drove 24 hrs round trip to Owens Sound Ontario Canada in a blizzard to pick that thing up. It was a great trip because I had my son with me, and we just goofed around the whole time. As a side note, Polar Bear was selling this thing because his girlfriend was making him so they could get married and buy a house. In my mind I was thinking "what kind of man lets his woman force him to sell his favorite toy?" But when we got there and were in his cellar and she came down the stairs.....let's just say I would have sold my soul, never mind my SJ, to keep her around.
Anyhow, besides my RN, I picked up a SN for my son a year later and did all the typical mods to it, then grabbed a blaster 'by accident'. I went to buy a two place trailer and this guy had a B1 sitting on another trailer. I'd never even seen a B1 before. The guy says "Tell ya what, if you buy the triple trailer, I'll throw in the Blaster". I figured, why not?. That B1 is now my daughter's and as her senior project for High School she tore it down to the hull, did all the necessary body work, I built her a paint booth under our porch, she painted it, turfed it, and we reupholstered the seat. She got an A+ and now has a cool looking B1 to mess around on. My wife has an old 1995 Kawi 750STS couch that we call the BarbieMobile because of the lovely lipstick and purple color scheme.
Jetskiing has brought a lot to my life. Most importantly it gives me something in common with my kids, especially my daughter, since my son has always been happy to hang with his Dad; my daughter, not so much. We haven't always seen eye to eye, to say the very least, but that B1 project was a turning point, and now riding together is just icing on the cake. I posted this before, a long time ago, but it is worth repeating. Jet skiiing has made me a better father and husband. If I come home stressed out from work and not in the best of moods to deal with people, all I need to do is walk in my basement, throw on some shorts and my vest, jump on my SJ and in 10 minutes I am a far happier person who is now in a great mood, which makes dealing with any family drama much much easier for everyone involved. Plus it keeps me from just grabbing a few beers to drown my workday sorrows.
Spending a day on the lake with the whole family riding is pretty much the best thing ever.
