Water Skiing

Professional golfer Jim Nelford was listed in fair condition Monday at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital after suffering severe injuries in a boating accident a day earlier on Saguaro Lake. Nelford, 30, a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, had been water skiing and was struck by the boat when it made a pass to pick him up. Hospital officials said Nelford suffered severe cuts to his right arm, thigh and back. He underwent 2 1/2 hours of surgery late Sunday night.

A gun accidentally discharged after being detected in a carry-on at an Atlanta checkpoint Sunday. The gun's owner was telling an Atlanta officer how to clear the loaded .22-magnum revolver when it accidentally discharged. A fragment grazed the officer but he was uninjured. The gun's owner was arrested and charged with carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering, according to the police report . . . . Now Greyhound is mad at Alec Baldwin too. After being booted off an American flight last week for refusing to turn off an electronic device, he wrote in a column that flight attendants “have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.“ The rant drew a letter of complaint from Greyhound President Dave Leach.

A dozen blind youths will get to go water-skiing at Castaic Lake after all, thanks to a fee waiver approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The supervisors voted unanimously without discussion to waive the $500 fee after the nonprofit sponsor of the outing called the cost prohibitive and appealed to Supervisor Mike Antonovich for leniency.

America's silkiest super highway, the stretch of sea between Long Bench and Avalon, was full of skiers Saturday as the Catalina Water Ski Race went off for the 63rd time. It's the zaniest start in sports: Speedboats race in with flags announcing the event is about to begin, then a start boat sends up a flare or two. All it's lacking is Rodney Dangerfield dropping his anchor into your dinghy. Part tanning party, part grueling endurance test, this prestigious ski race is one of those "why-do-they-do-that-again?"

When she was 2 years old, Brandy Nagle learned about water skiing on the rug in her family's front room. Her father, who had fitted skis on her tiny feet, would throw his daughter a line and pull her around the room, pretending they were gliding over glassy waters and cutting through a white-capped wake. He'd take her through all the turns and twists and drag her over the rug's choppy surface, simulating the sounds of a boat's motor.

David Scott (Woody) Pollak, a well-known captain with a local marine assistance company, was killed Tuesday in a water-skiing accident two miles off Crystal Cove, the Sheriff's Harbor Patrol said. Ironically, the effort to save the 34-year-old captain's life was similar to efforts Pollak himself had participated in with his firm, Costa Mesa-based Vessel Assist. Pollak of Newport Beach was free-boarding (water skiing on a board) behind the Vessel Assist 1 when he fell at 11:45 a.m.

Gina MacAndrew was watching fancy speedboats and Jet Skis race across a lake in San Dimas when a line of vehicles rolling across the beach caught her eye. They were wheelchairs that were slowly being maneuvered through the deep sand by a half-dozen paraplegics. They pulled to a stop at the water's edge. "I thought to myself, 'What are they doing out here?' " said MacAndrew, 20, a clerk from Fontana who had stretched out on the beach at Puddingstone Reservoir to sunbathe.

I love ice skating, especially ice skating shows where all I have to do is watch: triple axels, quadruple toe loops, lay back spins, death drops that leave you shaking your head in admiration. Fortunately for me, I have a companion in my ice dreams, my mother. So when Mother told me that Olympic and World Champion ice skater Michelle Kwan was kicking off the summer series of skating shows at Lake Arrowhead, I was ready to go.

You hear the "tick, tick, tick" as the car slowly climbs the track. You anticipate the fall that awaits. Suddenly, the descent begins, so quickly your body is thrown against the seat. You're jolted around the first turn, then the second. As the car completes the final turn you let your body relax, trying to catch your breath before the car comes to an abrupt stop. It's that roller-coaster feeling--the anticipation, the thrills--that has kept Jennifer Leachman, 27, water-skiing since age 5.

When Chuck Stearns won the Catalina water-ski race for the first time, it was 1955 and he was 16. He was called Chucky then and was the youngest winner in the race's history. When Stearns won the same across-the-channel-and-back race in 1982, it was his 11th victory, and no one else has won it more than three times. At 44, he was the oldest winner. Stearns, 52 and as muscular and optimistic as ever, will be in this year's 42nd annual Catalina race, which starts Sunday at 8 a.m.

Mickey Mouse was listening to Eminem on her iPod as she warmed up on the practice putting green Sunday morning. Candie Kung walked by and made note of the familiar scene. "Did you sleep here last night?" Kung asked. Eun Hee Ji (a.k.a. Mickey Mouse) said, no, she didn't spend that much time on the green, but seemed always to run into Kung for some reason. Kung was at the practice green again later, waiting as Ji made the definitive putt of the women's golf season.

Re "Palin's Big Oil infatuation," Opinion, Sept. 24 For all of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s sound and fury about how Big Oil is ruining the planet and how evil Sarah Palin is for supporting it, I noticed that Kennedy started off his article recalling a water-skiing trip he and his children took. Unless Kennedy has some superhuman speed-rowing ability we aren't privy to, water-skiing involves hours of using a boat with an engine -- an engine that requires, yes, gasoline and oil. Seems to me that elite environmental alarmists like Kennedy who preach oil abstinence are more than a bit hypocritical when they pollute waterways with their pleasure boats, as well as polluting the skies with their private planes as they jet back and forth to their next anti-oil speaking engagement.

A small Orange County water district allowed a water-ski school to operate illegally for nine years in a canyon reservoir, possibly jeopardizing the health of Villa Park residents who drink the water, state health officials said last week. The activity was discovered last month when organizers of a triathlon sought permission from the Serrano Water District to use Irvine Lake for swimming.

Water skier Tony Klarich, self-proclaimed Guy Who Can Ski on Anything, haunts garage sales to find an item -- any item -- to ride: a 1-by-4-foot wooden plank, old snow skis, a ladder. "I'll walk into people's garages, thinking, 'I can ski on that,' " Klarich says en route to Long Beach on Friday where he skied on an upside-down picnic table, above. "I've been trying to get a flat-screen television to ski on, but no one's donating one yet."

Victim No. 1 strips down from Puma sweats to a pink and black bikini, straps on a life vest and dips her angel-design wakeboard into the glassy water. The teenager squirts a mound of shaving cream into the bindings to slick the neoprene and slips off the stern, tow line in hand. "This is cold!" she yelps, bobbing. But in seconds Karen Zieger forgets about her chicken skin.

In the early 1950s, San Francisco surfers would wait until water temperatures dipped below 50 degrees before bothering to wrestle into a proto-wet suit. "It was a straitjacket," said Jack O'Neill, 81, of his early innovation, which was nothing more than unicellular foam plastic glued onto thin plastic in the shape of a vest. "In those days, you would last about an hour before the ice cream headaches set in."

Martie Wells of Colton survived dropping his tow line and following the wrong boat Sunday but recovered in time to win the 62-mile Catalina Water Ski Race from Long Beach to Avalon and back. Wells, 28, finished 32 seconds ahead of Darren Kirkland of England. The winning time was 1 hour 1 minute .09 seconds. Defending champion Kurt Schoen of Mesa, Ariz.

Graham Cole has no problem being pulled by powerboats at speeds approaching 100 mph. Just don't ask him to ride Colossus at Magic Mountain. "I hate roller coasters," he said. "I don't control the speed. I don't control the direction that they go. I'm just sort of along for the ride and I'm not necessarily a person who's along for the ride."

Eloise Takes a Bawth, Kay Thompson with "additional plumbing" by Mart Crowley, Illustrated by Hilary Knight, Simon & Schuster: 80 pp., $17.95 Ever-irrepressible Eloise absolutely loves taking a bawth, and her devotees will absolutely love seeing her "splawsh, splawsh, splawsh" her way through a delightfully disastrous -- yet ultimately propitious -- time in the tub.

In pearl earrings, apricot toenail polish and a black wetsuit, Mary Murphy is the picture of graceful aging. At 84, she is about to ride a modified ski to Santa Catalina Island and back, a 62-mile journey. Tall and athletic, she has an elegant bearing for a woman wearing rubber. At the uncivilized hour of 7:30 a.m., she bobs in the chilly water off Long Beach, signaling to the boat driver she is ready by chirping "yoo hoo."