The art of skipping stones

Last night I watched Amelie, a French Film with my friend Megan. It's a film I've often seen in movie rental stores and have always wanted to pick up, but never have. It was an interesting film, and one of the topics that was recurrent in the film was that Amelie, the main character was a skipper of stones. There were countless scenes in which she was picking up random skipping stones. I was amused by this because growing up I recall my dad always picking up stones to skip when we were near a body of water. Numerous times he attempted to teach me, however my stones always sank.

As I drove home last night I was thinking about the skipping of stones, the origination of the activity, and why people partake in the activity. So to Google I went. (What did we do before search engines!) Anywho, according to Wikipedia...

"Stone skipping is a pastime which involves throwing a stone with a flattened surface across a lake or other body of water in such a way that it bounces off the surface of the water. The object of the game is to see how many times a stone can be made to bounce before sinking. In North America it is also referred to as "skipping rocks". In Russian this game is called "baking pancakes", in Ukrainian, it is called "letting the frogs out", in Polish, "letting the ducks out". In Spanish it is called "making white-caps", among other names, in Catalan, "making step-stone bridges" or "furrows", or simply "skipping stones"."

I had no idea that this was an international pasttime, but it is somewhat comforting to know that a person could travel around the world and find a fellow man or woman skipping stones at a tranquil pond.

I also discovered in my Google search that there is a North American Stone Skipping Association (NASSA). Who knew?! According to the website the current holder of the Guinness World record for skips is held by Jerdone McGhee who skipped a stone 38 times (there is currently a contender-Kurt Steiner, who skipped a stone 40 times)!! What I want to know is how a person or a group of persons can count a stone skipping across a peaceful body of water when it skips that many times? I think I'd lose track after 8 or so.

There are several "How to skip a stone" videos and instructions online that I may study and who knows...I may try skipping a stone or two again sometime soon! How about you?