PORT ANGELES — Just call Ron Rogers “Ol’ Rooster Tail.”
The tail part will come from the salt spray he’ll kick up water-skiing across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria and back Sunday.
The “Ol’”?
Well, he thinks that at 61, he might be the oldest man to try being towed behind a fast boat for roughly — he hopes not too roughly — 34 miles.
Rogers, of Port Angeles, will be towed by Josh Armstrong in his 35-foot aluminum boat built at his Armstrong Marine, located between Port Angeles and Sequim.
The men hope its twin 250-horsepower engines will propel it at the 35 to 45 mph that will keep Rogers upright on his 7-foot-long wooden slalom ski.
Between the Port Angeles Boat Haven and Ogden Point in Victoria Harbour could lurk deadheads and debris, not to mention the wakes of oceangoing vessels, swells and wind waves.
A breeze of more than 15 mph “could shut you down because the wind chop could get pretty high,” Rogers said.
However, “conditions look good for Sunday, with a zero- to 1-foot chop,” Rogers said Thursday after lugging his heavy ski to the Port Angeles harborfront for a photo.
“The only thing that could delay us would be if the fog rolls in.”
Race series
Fog and the mishaps it wrought caused the end of a Labor Day weekend waterski race series across the Strait in 1971.
That was when, according to Rogers, some skiers on the return leg miscalculated their position and landed at Dungeness Spit, a 13-mile mistake.
Rogers has dreamed of this attempt for 44 years. He recalls when, as press foreman for the Peninsula Daily News, he would stand on the newspaper’s loading dock and gaze across the Strait on calm nights, dreaming of the day he would ski it.
Rogers retired from the PDN in 1999 after 29 years at the paper. His dream started taking serious shape two years ago but only reached fulfillment when Armstrong signed on as his pilot.
“Finally, I decided it was something I was going to do,” Rogers said.
Skis all year
It won’t be his first time riding waves; Rogers said he water-skis on lakes Crescent and Sutherland every month of the year.
On Tuesday, he skied for 20 miles on Lake Crescent, he said.
Besides wind, waves and the hazards floating on them, Rogers’ biggest threat will be the 45- to 50-degree temperature of the Strait.
“You don’t want to spend very much time in the water,” said Rogers, who has taken the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge at Hollywood Beach for 20 years.
He’ll wear a full dry suit and carry his enhanced Washington drive’s license with him. He said he will get permission for the international jaunt from both U.S. and Canadian authorities.
On shore awaiting word from Rogers will be his wife, Nora; daughter Shauna; and three grandchildren.
One-time KONP radio announcer Dick Goodman was the first person to ski from Port Angeles to Victoria in 1957, but he didn’t ski the return leg. And Goodman then was in his 20s.
‘A lot of life’
As for the races that ended in 1971, “it appears that most of the competitors were anywhere from teenagers to their late 20s, early 30s,” Rogers said.
“Some of them got knocked off their skis two or three times when they hit debris or whatever.
“I’m certainly not the first person to do this, but as far as I know, I’m the oldest.”
Rogers called himself “a gym nut” who also bicycles and snow-skis, “but water-skiing is my big passion.”
A slalom ski is single ski with a binding for one foot and usually a smaller grip in the rear for the skier’s second foot.
Rogers’ streak across the Strait is just a personal goal, he said, with no monetary reward, but he has a point to prove:
Keep moving via land or water to stay ahead of the years that threaten to catch up to you.
“I’d just like to encourage people my age, although we’re baby boomers, to still get out and enjoy life every day,” he said.
“By staying in shape, you can slow down the aging process tremendously. You’ve got a lot of life left to live.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
