Wakeboarding
Wakeboarder Zips Through Lake Superior's Sea Caves
Wake Masters Champion Mike Dowdy uses his winch and some creativity to give new meaning to "Wake Superior."
3 min
Mike Dowdy rides Wake Superior
With a winch and behind a boat, Dowdy takes some time off from the competition tour to explore the beautiful location, bringing the highest levels of wakeboarding to the Great Lakes.
Dowdy’s out there exploring. Like on a recent trip to an extraordinary corner of Lake Superior known as the Apostle Islands where, with the help of a gas-powered winch and speedboat, he found a few hidden lines no one’s ridden before. We caught up with the man and got the story on this astonishing trip.
Mike Dowdy winches through a freshwater sea cave
© Ryan Taylor
RedBull.com: This Great Lakes mission looked awesome. What’s your connection to the place?
Mike Dowdy: I’m from Michigan and as a kid we’d take family vacations out to the Great Lakes a lot and go out to the beaches, so my connection as a kid was definitely exploring new places around there that I’d never been to — but without a wakeboard. So getting to transition that vibe into my career now is really cool.
Tell us about the Apostle Islands; it looks epic.
Basically, Apostle Islands is a group of islands off the coast of Bayfield, Wisconsin, in Lake Superior. They’re a bunch of sandstone sea caves — I guess the water from Lake Superior eroded [the stone], making all these different islands, caves and features.
Only one way in and out of a sea cave
© Ryan Taylor
Sea caves … in freshwater lakes?
Yeah. [Laughs] That’s the technical term, or how I understand it.
So this mission was actually a pioneer-style trip?
Yeah, this was a total expedition-style occasion. I’ve never really had a chance to wakeboard near the Great Lakes, let alone explore these kinds of natural features. So to get out there with the boat, and then even with the winch, did feel a whole lot like exploring.
Dowdy was pulled by a winch to bank off the rock
© Ryan Taylor
Any other places like this you have your eyes on for future explorations?
Coincidentally, yes. I actually have a friend who just sent me some photos of a place in Iceland that looks so incredible. I don’t know for sure if it hasn’t been “pioneered” or anything, but it’s definitely a place with some epic features I’d really love to explore.
Back to the Apostle Islands trip. When you were winching through those sea caves, how fast do you think you were moving?
I’d say 20-23 mph, Which is pretty quick for how small those caves are. It was pretty scary, actually. [Laughs]
Mike Dowdy blasts one last one before calling it
© Ryan Taylor
Have you had any accidents or close calls in situations like that?
Nah. But I’d say that specific trip was probably the gnarliest experience I’ve ever had winching. Mainly because the caves were so narrow, the winches aren’t 100 percent accurate and the guy operating the winch was on a cliff 30 feet up. So we actually had a person in the water yelling to the guy operating the winch on the cliff, letting him know when I was ready in the water, who had to let the other guy know. It wasn’t the most ideal winch-occasion, but we made it work for sure.
Dowdy set up the winch then kayaked the rope out
© Ryan Taylor
What about the kayak? What was the deal with you in there?
We had to trail the winch 50 yards into a dense forest, and then the end point was this cliff that was about 30 feet above the water. The kayak just helped us get the tow rope from the winch on the cliff. Then we had the boat go out and park by the rock, which was where I was jibbing when I did that method grab. Basically, I was getting winched toward shore from the boat offshore … if that makes sense.
After zooming in the caves, Dowdy went traditional
© Ryan Taylor
As a world champion wakeboarder, what’s your contest schedule look like?
I’m pretty much occupied eight months of the year from March to mid-September, traveling and competing all over the world. So this type of exploratory mission was such a cool change of pace and something I don’t normally do — a really refreshing feeling to step outside of my comfort zone. It’s something I don’t do a lot, but it’s something I look forward to doing more of, that’s for sure.
Mike Dowdy boardslides the sun in Lake Superior
© Ryan Taylor
Does anyone else ride through caves like this in other parts of world?
I don’t know for sure but not normally. Usually wakeboarding just takes place on normal public or private lakes, or cable parks and winch spots guys stumble upon.
I think the winch is most useful for locations you can’t hit or can’t get close enough to with a boat. So if there’s a small bit of water with a handrail, you can use the winch to pull you into it. Or in our case, there was a massive sandstone rock I wanted to bomb into and we couldn’t get the boat close enough to shore. But the winch sure got me close enough.
