Wakeboarding in Jamaica and St. Lucia

Got to love it. Wakeboarding is gaining traction in the Carribbean. Last week on my way to St. Lucia, I had a 6 hour lay-over in Jamaica. So we cruised over to Sandals only to find a guy launching the mastercraft for the day(by hand)

so i checked the watersports area and was lucky enough to find a board

since my luggage was being transferred between planes at the time, i only had the clothes on me, so it would be a wet suit for the next leg of the trip, i was not going to pass this up


moving on to st. lucia only to find an x-7 on the water

however the steering was broken so i grabbed a board and headed for the back-up ski boat

took a run

and headed back for more drinks at the swim up bar

Back in 1999, I got the opportunity to wakeboard in Jamaica as well. It was at the Sandals Ocho Rios. They had a Mastercraft, but only water skiis. We asked about and described a wakeboard. The guy said "wait here", and about 45 minutes later he came walking down the beach with a wakeboard. Sandal bindings, but what the hell, right? We took off riding on the incredible turquoise water.

The only problem was they would either drive too slow or too fast. And when you put your thumb up to tell them to speed up, they would give you the "thumbs up" back. No worries mon....

An incredible experience.

I went to the Grand Lido Braco for my honeymoon a year ago and was very disappointed with the water skiing, I had seen the MC's in the brochures from the sandals resorts so I thought that they might have one as well. It turned out they didn't, they had a center consol outboard. The water wasn't bad, but it wasn't the nice turquoise water either,the smooth water was at the end of a river. The boat didn't have a wake, and the driver couldn't keep a speed, same story as Steph. My wife didn't board, said it wasn't worth it. But then again we weren't there to wakeboard All in all very nice resort and we had a great time.

Stephane,
wonder where they pulled the wakeboard from and why they didnt have it out all along - that is a cool story. i was at sandals dunn's river in 2000 and they didnt even know what a wakeboard was. in fact the guy i was asking just tried to sell me weed instead

I was so happy to see a wakeboard that I never even thought to ask where he got it from. I just grabbed it and ran into the water. My now ex-husband went next. Pretty soon there was a group gathering on the beach wanting to ride.

Hmmm, or maybe gathering to buy weed....

I road behind a 34' Fountain last week in the Abaco's.

what about newer reports? anybody has been to st. lucia and saw a wakeboard?