Le Franco Phoney

When walking through Annecy’s lakeside park on Sunday, we noticed a crowd at the Point des Amours — the bridge over the canal. On the bridge was a generator, some guys in wetsuits, and a big wheel of cable, unwound. The cable was floating calmly up the canal, and at the other end, another guy in a wetsuit with a wakeboard attached to his feet, floating in the water.

After a few false starts, the nod was given and the generator was switched on. It pulled the cable back towards the bridge — with the wakeboarder attached. He jumped over buoys and did lots of little tricks before he reached the bridge. He ended his run with a big jump and a bigger splash in the shallow water below him, much to the applauding crowd’s pleasure. Luckily, I happened to have my very uncompact SLR camera in my handbag(!), so I snapped some photos. See below, with commentary.