Barefoot water skier finds no skis a breeze

Sherri Morse's feet look normal. No calluses, cuts or bruises. No strange lumps or bumps.

It's a surprising feat because throughout the past 14 years, her feet have sliced through lakes so fast that they've raised white sheets of water at least 8 feet in the air.

Considered one of the top female barefoot water skiers in the world, the 40-year-old Redmond resident has made the little-known extreme sport an obsession.

She spends most weekends near Chehalis practicing at a private lake, has spent at least $70,000 out-of-pocket to travel around the world for competitions, and has hurt everything from her shoulders to her knees. On her right ankle is a blue and pink tattoo in the shape of a bare foot.

"It's absorbed a lot of my life," said Morse, a 5-foot-2-inch mortgage broker whose tanned skin and coppery-red hair reveal the hours she spends in the sun.

Next week, Morse will compete in the 2006 World Barefoot Water-Ski Championships at Lake Silverado, a private, man-made lake in Adna, near Chehalis. She won the overall category in the senior open women's division of the world championships in 2003 and placed second in 2005.

Barefoot water skiing is what it sounds like — water skiing on bare soles. Skiers are dragged through the water at speeds ranging from 35 to 50 miles per hour.

At the competitive level, judges weigh three events: jumping, in which skiers are pulled by a boat up and over a ramp 18 inches off the water; slalom, in which skiers move back and forth across the boat's wake; and tricks, where skiers show off moves like skiing on one foot.

Among Morse's tricks: putting her head through the tow rope's triangle-shaped handle and letting the boat pull her through the water by her neck. In another maneuver, she's hanging on only with her teeth.

The speed is fast and the falls are nasty in this sport, said Chris Sternagle, a barefoot water skier from Longview.

"You get beat up a lot learning," he said. "You have a small surface to work on and don't have an overwhelming amount of room for error."

Morse has split open her knee, has two fractures in her back, has had shoulder surgery and has ruptured her eardrums at least 10 times, she said.

"You are constantly putting your body into a position that does create damage," Morse said. After a winter off from skiing, the transition can be brutal, she said, with her feet feeling like they're bleeding when they're not.

Earlier this month, a shoulder injury contributed to Morse's last-place finish out of six women in the open women's division of the 2006 Barefoot Water Ski National Championships in Polk City, Fla.

But she said she won't let the injury get in the way of competing next week. More than 150 people — including at least four from the Puget Sound area — are expected to participate in the world championships.

The grueling sport started in the late 1940s in Florida. It now claims about 5,800 competitive and recreational skiers nationally, said Natalie Angley, spokeswoman for USA Water Ski, the national governing body for nine forms of water skiing.

Morse has competed in six world and 14 national competitions since 1992. In the national competition earlier this month, she was the oldest skier in the open women's division.

At her Lake Sammamish apartment, medals and trophies line the walls. There are no cash prizes in either the national or world championship competitions.

"It's not like we win $10,000; it's more for the glory," Morse said.

It's also the familylike camaraderie of the community of people she's met throughout the years and the unpredictability of the sport that keep her hooked, said Morse.

"In every inch of that water, something happens," she said.

But that's not how she felt when she tried barefoot water skiing for the first time in 1992.

"I said, 'There's no way in hell I'm doing this,' " Morse said. "It was so brutally hard to do, it seemed impossible."

She fell. The water pressure unzipped her wet suit. And she felt like the wind was knocked out of her. She swore more than a few times.

A year later, she tried the sport again and hasn't stopped since.

Despite her years of experience, one part of the sport — the jump — still sparks anxiety. She hit the ramp in 2003 and split her knee open.

"Every time I jump, there's this feeling in my throat and my gut of: 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.' "

Anne Kim: 206-464-2591 or akim@seattletimes.com