ANNUAL WACKOS

Sorry no post yesterday. Sometimes life intrudes.

Every New Year's Day a group of people goes water skiing in the Mississippi River. And, yes, it's cold. Really cold. The air was mild last Wednesday but the water comes down from way up north. It takes a special kind of person to do this.

It is for a good cause, though. The event is a fund raiser for the Missouri Disabled Water Ski Association. They use special equipment to get people with significant physical impairments out on the water and zooming.                  

Cold + Wet + Wind

A  last note about sub-zero aquatics on New Year's Day. I admit to being a cold weenie but having the aromatic spray from the Mississippi in your face at such temperatures is unimaginable. It seems that you have to be the kind of person who wears a flamingo on his head to tolerate it.    

Fox & Friends

I didn't see anyone dressed like this in the frigid Mississippi after I arrived but I suspect the event began before the advertised hour of noon. There was a picture in the Post-Dispatch yesterday taken from the back of someone water skiing in a Santa suit. I didn't see it. But was it this man? The suit doesn't look soaking wet.

A couple of the TV stations always show up with reporters and camera operators. You can see them milling around below. (New Year's is usually a slow news day.) The local Fox outlet got an interview with the person who would have played Santa in Frozen if Santa had appeared in Frozen. No Fox in this household. We watch MSNBC.   

BTW, that skin color and tone is a nice example of what the Fuji X-T2 can do. My 5DM3 would have put too much magenta in the face and coat.   

The Age Of Crazy Has Not Passed

It was -5F / -20.5C when I woke up yesterday morning. At noon on the riverfront it was 4F / -15.5. The water temperature was just below freezing. Remember, we are on about the same parallel as Sicily and Athens.

Being New Year's Day, it was time for the annual water ski run on the Mississippi by the Missouri Disabled Water Ski Association, a fine organization that gets people usually confined to wheelchairs out on the water at high speed. Fine people, yes, but they don't all necessarily have all their marbles together.

I've shot this event before and on some cold days, but I've never seen ice in the river on January 1. It left the skiers with little room to maneuver. Only two people tried and only one actually got up.      

First day of  shooting with just the Fujifilm X-T2. There were other photographers with big Canon cameras and bigger white lenses. Doubt they got better shots than I did and my shoulders left in better shape.    

Adventures In Hypothermia

We assume these people knew what they were doing, but, geez, is this really fun? Some, like the woman in the top photo, wore the appropriate thermal headgear but most didn't. Some were barefoot, which is incredible to me. À chacun son goût. I'd rather just take their pictures. But then there's skydiving . . .                

Those Same Crazy People

It happens here and there in the northern US and, I assume, cold places around the world. People jump into bodies of icy water on New Year's Day. When I was growing up I remember people who called themselves the Polar Bear Club swimming in the Atlantic at Coney Island. Here, they go water skiing in the Mississippi.

I've shot the event other years. Yesterday was the warmest New Year's Day in some time, 43F/6C at the start of the event. It benefits the Missouri Disabled Water Ski Association, a group that gets people with severe handicaps out on the water and moving fast.

This fellow was doing a handstand on his board, which soon resulted in a very cold splash.