Wake Wars

On Sunday, Mark and I headed over to the mouth of the Patawalonga River for the Monster Energy Wake Wars 2010, which has been defined as Australia's premier wakeboard event.   for those of you unfamiliar with wakeboarding, it is a water sport similar to waterskiing. A rider, whose feet are attached to a board, is pulled behind a motor boat.  While being pulled along, the rider uses the boat's wake to become airborne and perform a variety of tricks involving jumps and flips.
This is not really the type of event that I am drawn to, but last year we stumbled across it on a walk home from Henley Beach.  I'm not sure if we were more impressed with the actual wakeboarding or the people watching--a crowd of close to 10,000.  Whatever the attraction, we decided to go and check out the event again.
It turned out to be a bit of a bust.  With the weather soaring close to 40˚c attendance was a low.  Also, perhaps due to last year's large crowds there were fences in place and it was difficult to get close to the area without paying to go in, so it was a a challenge to get a good photo.  On the upside, the wakeboarders we did see were women and they were impressive.  We couldn't help but wonder where they got their drive and courage.