Jaunted

The town takes their watersports seriously: there are dedicated beaches and clubs for windsurfing, wakeboarding, waterskiing, and scuba diving—but think more rocky and dramatic that white sand and turquoise waters.

The clubs, mainly located in a strip along the Quai de Cologny, are fully outfitted with equipment for rent, friendly pros, wetsuits (the water temperature is brisk most of the year) and of course, a full bar and plenty of warm rocks for sunbathing. The crowd starts at infant and goes all the way up in age, and of course rowdy hobbyists mix in with serious athletes—the more the merrier dragging their craft up onto the rocky bed.

After a quick, carb-loading lunch, we headed to the French side of the lake for an afternoon jaunt on a friends’ boat. This lull in the day is deceptively easy—lounging by the pool, turning from front to back, mixing pastis (we are now extremely excellent at this) reapplying sunscreen—in every way playing to our strengths.

We even overcame the challenge of balancing a glass of white wine on a speedboat and catching errant sunglasses before they flew overboard, but finally, the moment of truth: “You didn’t think you were getting away with it that easily, did you?”

The thing about Genevans: they ski. They may not enjoy skiing, they may not actively go skiing anymore, but they all, at one time in their life, have been on a pair of skis—snow or water but generally both. So the prospect of trailing an entirely non-skiing New Yorker was simply too good to pass up. English-language cheering notwithstanding, it took four tries to get up for a few exciting seconds, one of those sporting moments where you witness, for a second, how great it would feel to be really amazing at something. And then: a mouthful of lake. Which, for the record, is not bad at all.

We caught the last rays of the day back at Geneve-Plage, the Central Park/Bondi Beach of Geneva, and watched the sunset take the last breaths of wind from the sailboats returning to harbor—and our plan for tomorrow drifted right into focus.

[Photo: Usharf]

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