Waterskiing to Cache Bay

There are some of you who have paddled from our dock to Cache Bay. It’s a fairly long paddle and probably takes the average person four to five hours. It feels like a long time even when you are in a boat so I can’t imagine how it would feel to waterski all of the way to Cache Bay.

There are some old wooden water skis in our lodge that belonged to Ralph and Bea Griffis who used to own and operate Chik-Wauk Lodge. Back in those days you could have any size motor on your boat and you could go anywhere you wanted with a motor. That meant you could waterski wherever you wanted too. And for Bea Griffis that meant waterskiing all the way to the Cache Bay Ranger Station from Chik-Wauk. It’s roughly the same distance from Chik-Wauk to the Ranger Station as it is from our place to the Ranger Station minus the rapids. An amazing feat to someone like me who tried repeatedly and unsucessfully to waterski at a friend’s cabin in the 8th grade.

I don’t like to say I can’t do something. So since the 8th grade when someone has mentioned waterskiing over the years I have said, “I want to try to waterski sometime because I couldn’t do it in the 8th grade.”  Many people have said, “I’ll take you, let’s go this summer, I’ll call you.”  So, for 30 plus years I’ve waited for the call and opportunity.

It turns out I just hadn’t mentioned it to the right person. The first weekend in August I gave my usual line to a father of one of Josh’s classmates and he called and texted me not once or twice but until it finally worked out for me to go to their house on the lake and give it a shot.

He and his friends on the lake are amazing waterskiers. They have a course set up and fly through it on one ski at speeds I’m almost afraid to be in the boat at. But it turned out he also had a boom attachment that made it super easy to pop out of the water and ski.  It was awesome to be able to waterski.  I didn’t get up on top of the water using a rope behind the boat because I was super satisfied having been able to ski next to the boat.  It is a really neat feeling to be on top of the water and I can see why Bea would have wanted to waterski all of the way to Cache Bay.  While I won’t ever be able to legally waterski to Cache Bay I at least know what it would feel like to carve through the waters of Saganaga on two wooden skis.

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