The club completed our first planned run of the Season on Sunday 5th April. We had seven ski's on the water including the club's newest member Eugene O'Shea on his Yamaha 1200. We met up in Longwood around 1.30pm with both of the club's multi ski trailers in tow we headed for Athlone. We filled up the skis with petrol in Kinegad along with numerous reserve 5ltr cans for the trip ahead on the water as we had not covered the planned route before and wanted to be sure we had enough fuel to cover the trip.
We arrived at the water sports centre at the Hodson Bay hotel complex around 3pm and were greeted by Richie O'Hara All the ski's were dropped into the water and dry suites plulled on before mounting the skis for a group photo. We started up the engins and headed out onto Lough Ree and began the 25km journey to the top of the lake. There was a bit of a chop but nothing too serious so we kept a pace of about 50kph. The water was quite with only one boat passed before we reached the top of the lake. We then took the river into lanesborough and onto to Tarmonbarry.
We pulled in close to the waterfall took a few pics then over to the Marina to empy the spare fuel into the tanks for the journey back. The wind had picked up on the lake so we had to pound our way through a swell which was fun only it was a long run.
We landed back safe and sound around 6.15 and fair play to Richie he was there to see that we got back safe after a round trip of 73km. We took out all the skis and hit the road home for Longwood via a good chipper in Kinegad!!

A good day out enjoyed by all.

Pictures from the day can be see in the clubs section of the Photo Gallery