Growing up in the mountains, I wasn’t raised spending time on the water. As an adult, however, it’s something for which I’ve cultivated a great taste. In California I had a chance to cruise around on a motorboat, raft down the American River, and sail around the San Francisco Bay. Each activity offered it’s own thrills, but the best thing was just spending time with friends chilling on a boat. You have to work as a team to keep the boat going and at the same time do have plenty of time to just chat and relax.

The biggest challenge of course if affording the boat. I was lucky enough to be with people who either owned or had access to boats. If you’re on the road though, it can be a challenge to get yourself on a vessel. Just taking a glance at a place I would want to hire a boat – Sydney Harbour – it looks like it would cost Australian $ 550 (£300) for a half day hire in the middle of the week. I reckon though, if you were backpacking and were qualified to sail a boat, you could get other backpackers to pick up the tab for the boat if you took 5-6 people out on the water. Certainly a much handier backpacking skill to have than being able to play Hotel California.

I’ve been cruising around Northern California for the last couple of weeks and had a chance to get on three different boats during the course of a couple of weeks. This comes from my second boat ride on a speed boat on the American River running through Sacramento. My own hydrofoil exploits were significantly less impressive than what you see here (I simply got out of the water for a couple of seconds). But I did have a chance to watch this master, Mike, in action. He used to perform at a water park, so no surprise that he can effortlessly flip around like this.