After I had such a blast doing my first Maven Session in Carlsbad, I couldn’t wait to get the girls out to my own stomping grounds in the Northern California Delta. I picked Andrea Fountain, Steph Tor, and Kathleen Penney up from the airport on Friday afternoon and we mashed down to Stockton from Sacramento in my 1983 K-5 Diesel Blazer with over 600k miles, and prepared the gear for the weekend. Saturday morning we arrived at the Delta Wakeboard Camp’s new board shop at Tower Park. Delta Wakeboard Camp provided us with two Malibu Boats to use for the weekend. I launched the boats and tied them to the dock while Andrea and Steph brought the Liquid Force Maven gear out for all the girls to see.

When it was time to start, Andrea began explaining about board shape, rocker, and fins and also about the various styles of boots to accommodate each of the girls feet. Most of the girls knew what wake skating was, but Steph also explained to the girls who didn’t know and encouraged participation. There was a big improvement on girls who wanted to wake skate in Northern California than at the other stops. We even had one girl who came out just to wake skate which was really cool. Thanks to Nike 6.0, we had every size of shoe for every girl who wanted to give it a go.

We split up the girls into the two boats and hit the water. Although the Delta is known for smooth water, we had picked the one weekend where the unrelenting delta breeze would not stop blowing. We found a few good stretches throughout the weekend and tried to keep positive attitudes. The girls still pushed it harder than ever and had a great time despite the conditions, even the smallest girl who was only 5 years old!  Local ripper Danny Petritus (sp?) came out on Saturday and threw down some inverts and grabs for all of the other girls. At the end of the day, for the first time in my life, I rode doubles with Andrea. We didn’t do much due to the conditions, but I can’t wait to try it again.

Windblown and tired at the end of the day, we left to make a Cinco de Mayo dinner and to prepare for the next day. Sunday was a little less windy and few degrees warmer. At lunch we loaded up the Malibu VLX for Andrea and Steph to ride. We had a great turn out both days and had a really good time meeting all of the girls. There were a lot of girls whom I had met at the boat show who came out to ride. There was one girl, Mary, whom I had met in Pleasanton and was the only girl to jump in the freezing pool at the Liquid Force Slide Show, attempting to win a board. She came pretty close to landing her first method grab which was really awesome. There were many girls progressing throughout the weekend from learning how to jump the wake to doing their first 180 rotations. Thank you to everyone who traveled out to the Delta to ride with us! We had a great time with everyone and cannot wait for the next Northern California Maven Session. And thank you to Tom and Gwen Conway and Tim Parsons at the Delta Wakeboard Camp for letting us stay at the houseboat and use their boats to ride behind.