Wakeboarding Weekend at the Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC)

When I first started writing this, my wounds were still burning, my arms were still sore, and I was still groggy after a 2-hour nap that followed an 8-hour road trip from Naga to Antipolo. Fresh off a long weekend of wakeboarding at the Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC), the writer in me wanted to update the old blog prior to getting some much-needed shut-eye. Fatigue won that battle, but thanks to a good night’s sleep, I’m finally able to write an entry long enough to do the experience justice.

The Camsur Watersports Complex is known as the premier wakeboarding park in the Philippines and one of the finest wakeboarding locations in the world. Complete with world-class wakeboarding equipment and instructors – including CWC supervisor and Australian wakeboarding icon Reuben Buchanan – the park allows rookies to learn to wakeboard and veterans to get even better at their sport of choice.

Since Tammy and I were among the former, we had to spend our first hour in the wakeboard cable park on our knees. After what was literally a 30-second training session, we were speeding through the course on rented kneeboards, amazed at the powerful pull of the cables especially at the final turn, where beginners usually experience their first wipeout. (I’m proud to be among the fortunate few who didn’t crash into the water until after I got on a CWC wakeboard.) Exciting as kneeboarding was, though, you can only have so much fun bent over and on your knees. We didn’t want to limit ourselves to one position all weekend, so we couldn’t wait to hit the water with a couple of wakeboards.

We moved to Winch Park the next day to learn the basics and pick up some wakeboarding tips from our fellow novices, most of whom had already spent a few days in CWC. Though Winch has several lakes reserved for exhibition, it also has a long, shallow, rectangular lake with a single cable and two starting areas. A refuge for rookies, that lake is the only place in the entire Camsur Watersports Complex where you could accumulate more tumbles than turns and not feel a hint of shame. This is where I first fell flat on my face and into the water after the cable’s sudden change of speed and direction pulled me off my board.

It didn’t take long for us to get the hang of the wakeboarding basics, though, and before long Tammy and I could stand, steer, and turn with relative ease, and even make it from one end of the lake to the other on a strapless board.

This guy makes it look way too easy.

After only three hours of practicing in Winch Park, I bravely stupidly decided to go back to the CWC cable park and make my way through the course again – only this time, on my feet. Not a good idea, considering that:

• my collective wakeboarding experience in and out of the Camsur Watersports Complex amounted to a few hours,
• the cables in the main park are considerably faster and more powerful than the one in Winch,
• the park had way too many ramps I could smash into, and
• it was 430 PM at the time, my last meal was at 10, and after hours of non-stop activity, I was nearing exhaustion.

No surprise, then, that my first attempt to circle the cable park ended with a nasty – and rather painful – spill. As did my second. And my third. I could go on, but my head was so waterlogged from the brutal wipeouts that I lost count of how many tries I needed to finally make it past the first obstacle, complete the major turns, realize how freakin’ awesome wakeboarding was, come full circle, and get whipped into the water at the final, unforgiving turn.

At the end of the day, fatigue and inexperience still prevented me from circling the CWC cable park consistently, but I managed to do so a few more times. I was dead tired, but very much alive. My left hand sported new blisters, and my right had two fresh wounds – reminders of a particularly violent cable tug that tore off my skin and threw me off my board on my third-to-last attempt. The spill hurt like hell, but all I remember thinking at the time was that pain never felt so good.

My wounds were burning as Tammy and I left the park. My arms were sore. And I was spent as we started preparing for an 8-hour road trip from Naga back to Antipolo. But the writer in me knew prior to getting some much-needed shut-eye that when I woke up, I’d have something incredible to write about.

A/N: Keep an eye out for an updated version of this post that includes details of our trip that could serve as a guide to making the most of your own wakeboarding weekend at the Camsur Watersports Complex. And incidentally, none of the above pics are mine. They were all taken from CWC’s photo gallery, because my D70 chose last weekend of all times to screw things up.