September 6th 2013: Flyboarding on Forge Pond, Westford

Today at lunch, my colleague wanted to treat me and my boss to a meal, so we headed to the Sole Proprietor in Worcester. The place was crowded as always. For food, I decided to go with the Ginger Cream Shrimp with Apples (Shrimp pan seared with apples and chopped asparagus in a roasted garlic, ginger cream sauce. Served on steamed sushi rice),

while my colleagues got Fried Gulf Shrimp (served with French Fries and Coleslaw)

and the Seafood Mixed Grill (Grilled skewers of tuna, swordfish, gulf shrimp and fresh vegetables brushed with lemon herb vinaigrette, served with herbed rice pilaf).

The shrimp and mixed grill were both not too bad, while my dish was simply delicious. Definitely try that dish next time.

After work, I had an appointment to learn flyboarding on the Forge Pond in the town of Westford with We Deliver Watersports, one of the newest fun things to come out onto the market, whereby you strap on a board to your feet, much like snowboarding, and the board is connected to hosing that gets water pumped through it at a rate high enough to propel you out of the water and into the air, where you can hover as long as you are in the right position.

Unfortunately, I was only able to take pictures of the person doing it while I was waiting at the beach area, and none were taken of myself as I was rarely hovering in the air anyway.

I have to say, the water was really cold, and the air even colder. After putting on all the gear, life jacket and helmet, I was told to stay facing down, keeping my knees straight, and lifting my toes to get higher, while pointing them downward to go down. Doing this was pretty hard, especially keeping my legs straight. At times I was able to break my fall back into the water by diving, but most of the time, I just slammed forward or backward into it, especially once my knees bent a little. Slamming was pretty painful at times, especially when going face down into the water, while falling backwards usually dislodged my helmet and left me gasping for air. 

Thankfully, I did not waste my time here and managed to get out of the water a few times, if only for a few seconds.

Unfortunately, after my last liftoff where I was in the air for quite a bit before my knees buckled and I fell back into the water hard, I got extremely disoriented with my helmet not being in place and covering my eyes, causing my whole body to cramp up in the cold water. My instructor ended up having to drag me onto the jetski, where I could hardly move, and was in constant pain all the way back to the shore. Even after finally getting back to my car, I had to blast the hot air onto myself for several minutes before finally feeling the pain go away for good. From here, I decided to head to Comeketo, a cafeteria like small Brazilian restaurant in the town of Leominster, for dinner.

For food, I decided to get the Moqueca de Peixe com Camarão (Tilapia fillet fish stew with shrimp in a tomato coconut milk sauce. Served with rice, plantain, and house salad), which was really fresh and tasty.

The Acai in the Bowl (topped with sliced bananas and drizzled honey) which I got for dessert was pretty good too, though extremely filling and I could only finish half of it.

With that, I dragged my tired body home for the night. I wonder how I will fare at fencing tomorrow.