Sometimes you wonder how life can continue to be stranger than fiction, and yet it does. Many times, in a nice way. Like the story of Xana-Kai Nash, a Florida teenager who parlayed a first-time experience on a cruise ship into what are — as of this season — two world championships.
We stumbled across her story while reading a blog written by Adam Goldstein, the President of Royal Caribbean. In reality, his blog was written by her. It related how she was coaxed by the hotel director on Liberty of the Seas to try out the ship's 
new FlowRider in 2008 and how five years later she is the two-time World Flowboard Champion.
No, we didn't know there was a World Flowboard Championship either, but there is. It comes at the end of each year's Carbon Flow Tour that in 2013 began in Phoenix and wound up in Beach Haven, New Jersey. Just 15, Xana-Kai went undefeated and became the youngest world champion in history…finding how deep "history" goes is somewhat debatable.
But the story stands, as she explains in the Goldstein blog — check here to read it for yourself.
Whether Royal Caribbean's FlowRider led to world championships for the sport isn't clear. What is clear is that the 10-year-old, somewhat-intimidated cruise ship rookie of 2008 is now a professional at the craft, with three sponsors (not Royal Caribbean), a self-styled cause (Support Young Women) and a school schedule that is "virtual" because of her travel schedule.
Five years ago, when her parents took Xana-Kai on Liberty of the Seas and stayed on the ship that fortunate day she was introduced to FlowRider, could they have ever imagined this?
"It changed my life," she told Goldstein.
Norwegian Sun
7 nights
May 26, 2014
Vancouver, Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Hubbard Glacier, Anchorage
Inside: $499
Cost per day: $71
www.ncl.com