The mysteries of the Hydro Slide

Alex Coolman

FAIRGROUNDS -- It’s one of the fundamental mysteries of the boating

life.

For centuries, navigators have attempted to grapple with the problem,

bringing the weight of hard science, elegant reason and fervid

imagination to bear on this vexing conundrum.

Where should you sit in the Hydro Slide? Front or back?

Nobody knows.

Certainly it’s possible to believe, as you step through the gates of

the Orange County Fair, that you understand the answer.

Certainly it’s possible to suppose that the logic of the Hydro Slide

is something that can be understood through a little careful thought.

But observe the sinuous motion of the log-like vessels as they

navigate the Hydro Slide waters. Notice how they weave and bob in the

tossing currents of the channel, how their occupants emerge, drenched or

bone-dry, as the case may be.

This is not predictable boating.

This is not “Sailing for Beginners.”

This is the Hydro Slide. And everything you know about navigation is

useless.

Andrew Quirk, 7, of Costa Mesa took the only reasonable approach to

piloting his log on a recent evening at the fair: He surrendered himself

to chaos and yielded to the whim of Neptune, god of the sea.

“I just put my feet on the grips and put my hands all the way up,”

Quirk explained.

He sat in the front of the log.

He got really wet.

But that’s not always the way it works.

Sometimes the plastic log, gnarled and nubby for verisimilitude, comes

sluicing down the track and hits the splash pool in a way that throws

buckets of water at the rear passenger.

Sometimes it hits the splash pool and barely a drop of liquid is

disturbed.

There is no way to comprehend the Hydro Slide. There is no system that

can fully grasp its aquatic majesty.

But this, ultimately, is the lesson that boating will always impart to

those who pay attention. Prepare how you will, you are powerless before

the fury of the water.

The Hydro Slide teaches this, teaches not to assume that you can

master the chaos of the sea. Or the chaos of a water-themed roller

coaster, as the case may be.

Simply put your feet on the grips, put your hands all the way up, and

see what happens on the long way down.