In the few days between Surf Expo and Toe Jam my goal is to ride and shoot as much as possible. I spent all day yesterday on the lovely Lake Sheen with Steve Campbell, Gabe Paulson and Steph Wamsley. One of my newest photography toys is a water housing, so I was excited to try it out by shooting from the tube. I was hoping they'd have one, and although the small inner tube they presented looked neat, I wasn't about to ride in it. The solution was simple though: "borrow" one from the neighbors.

As with many lakes in the Orlando area, there are no shortage of tubes on Lake Sheen, and we came up with one on the next dock over. It was certainly big enough, and sort of looked like an inflatable couch. The only problem was the cover had seen better days. But beggars can't be choosers so we blew it up and gave in a whirl. 

Everytime the boat would start, I would see the cover rip a little further. Between that, and learning how to sit properly to it didn't tip over, I was a bit nervous shooting out there. I also had no idea how good my water housing actually was. It took about ten minutes to rip completely, and as Steve landed a 180, it finally gave out, shooting me off the tube into the lake. My camera stayed dry though, and we all had a good laugh at my expense.

We decided to try and find another tube, and the next dock over had a much more official-looking one. I walked around the house, trying to ask someone for permission to borrow it, but finally decided there was no one there, and we just grabbed it. This tube worked much better, and I only got dunked once due to driver error. 

My first tube shoot went fairly well I'd say, and it's definitely got potential for epic shots. The best part of the whole experience though, is when I went back over there to shoot again this morning, the borrowed tube was still under Steve's dock. Good thing its owners are weekend warriors!