This is a typical summer time problem for me. It’s Friday morning and I’m having difficulty focusing on work. I know that within 7 hours I will be on the highway, my car pointing in the direction of one of the most beautiful lakes in the area. My car has been packed since last night and I just need to add the cooler to the back seat and hitch my Seadoo PWC trailer to my car.

Almost every weekend during the months of July and August I spend the weekend camping, fishing and riding my Seadoo PWC. In my opinion, it’s a pretty perfect weekend getaway. I have managed to convince a few of my friends to spend most of their weekends this way as well. I have been spending my summers this way for the past 3 years. As each year passes another friend buys a Seadoo and gets to experience this joyous way of life.

The weekend begins immediately after work on Friday nights. The lake we’ve chosen this year is less than a two hour drive away, which is a perfect amount of time to unwind from work, listen to a couple of pod casts and some new iTunes on my iPod, and just enjoy the drive. I generally have time when I arrive to unpack, setup, get the Seadoo out on the lake, and enjoy a quick trip to say hi to some other campers I know that are just arriving for the weekend as well. Getting back before dark means we can get supper started and end up eating our burgers by the light of the campfire.

The first day of the weekend is when I get the whole mini-vacation started. First thing Saturday morning I usually get up by myself so I can get out on the lake just to do a tour and see what’s new in the last week. I take a travel cup of coffee with me, and get on the Seadoo at super low speed so I can do the rounds without disturbing too many of my neighbors with the high speed PWC driving by. It takes about an hour, but then I make my way back to the campsite and join the family for a typical camping big breakfast.

My Seadoo ride on Saturday afternoon is definitely a different pace than my early morning trawl. I meet up with all my Seadoo buddies and we head out for a combination of touring, visiting other campsites, and we inevitably take part in some watercraft games and races. Wave jumping another Seadoo wake has to be my personal favorite. Although Seadooing in a group is tons of fun, I don’t want to fail to mention how important it is to keep your eyes open and follow some basic common sense and safety rules so your weekend isn’t ruined with an unnecessary accident.

The end of the weekend inevitably arrives way too soon. Before I know where the time has gone it seems that it’s Sunday afternoon and the sun is on it’s way down. Some thinking ahead means that the Seadoos have had enough time to dry out since the late morning spin around the lake, so we don’t have to put the Seadoo covers back on wet PWCs. All there is left to do is to pack up the gear, hook up the PWC trailer, and head back to the city, before we get to do it all over again next weekend.

The other day when I was looking for Sea Doo covers sites, I started reading about Sea Doo history, and how the Sea Doo (PWC) and Jet-Ski actually came about. So since I like to know why things are as they are, and where things come from, I did some procrastinating on the Sea Doo covers research, and kept reading about the beginnings of Sea Doos.

I have to admit that I’m definitely part of the older crowd now, so you would think I already know when these water machines were created. I didn’t have the money back then to even consider buying one, so in fact I didn’t pay close attention to them at the time. I had always thought that PWCs came out in the 80′s, but little did I know that was only the refinement – digging a little deeper gave me a much better picture of the early evolution.

Back in the mid to late 1960s, the Canadian Bombardier family was busy making the ever popular Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The family began to toss around the idea of making a snowmobile that traveled on water. They quickly became serious about this project and started to make some preliminary designs of different types of prototypes. After hitting some design snags they heard about an American banker turned inventor named Jacobsen that was playing with a similar design project.

Jacobsen was interested in motorcycles and his dream was to create a machine similar to a motorcycle that would travel on water. Jacobsen and Bombardier joined forces. Before long, Jacobsen had designed the first Seadoo. Bombardier bought the rights from Jacobsen and added the signature yellow and black coloring from their famous Ski-doo snowmobiles. Bombardier also designed and manufactured the yellow and black Sea Doo covers. Bombardier produced these Sea Doos and offered them to the market in 1968 and 1969.

The Sea Doos of the late 60′s had some problems which limited their marketability. Since the first design was air-cooled, the hull wasn’t big enough to get enough air in to properly cool the engine. This was corrected in 1969, when they switched to liquid cooling. There were more problems however, since the majority of Sea Doos were sold and used on the East coast in salt water, there were insurmountable problems with corrosion.

After a few false starts the Bombardier family moth balled the idea of the modern day Sea Doo for the next 20 years. Jacobsen bought the rights to his ideas and joined forces with Kawasaki. While at Kawasaki, Jacobsen developed the first Jet-Ski. The history of Sea Doo PWC is colorful and interesting.