Saturday, April 7, 2012

ECWP Trip

Went a on trip with the UNCW wakeboard club to the East Coast Wake Park last weekend. The park is located near East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

On the way there I was stoked. I couldn't wait to get to the park and get my riding on. When we got there it was... umm... not what I expected. Rolling in was the parks big sign, which was a piece of plywood laid up against a tree with a spray painted "ECWP" on it. On the road into the park you pass the scenic trailer park on your left side. And then this big park I was expecting turned out to be a pond with a cable on it. There where a total of 4 obstacles to hit, one of which was not working. I was just expecting a lot more and it didn't turn out to be what I payed for.

All of the obstacles were not weighted down properly, so they would float all over the place and not be in the same spot each time you went on the coarse. They also were constructed poorly so the risk for injury was greatly increase. One of the students riding with us, an international student from Switzerland at that, ending up shartering his shoulder falling on one of the ramps there. We (not the parks supervisors or owner) had to drive him to the hospital, which they couldn't even tell us where it was, to get him the help he needed.

We ended up going out on this "wake park" for two days, Saturday and Sunday. Overall it was a fun trip, but I would never go back to this place again. The park was a redneck pond to say the least. I would much rather pay a lot less and ride behind a boat than go to this place again. So case in point; don't go to the ECWP, ride behind a boat if you are going wakeboarding. Thank you.