During the last few years there has been a rapid increase in the number of people who are learning the sport of Stand Up Paddle Surfing, also called SUP and Stand Up Paddle Boarding. Many of the people who have taken up SUP are also surfers, and they are eager to ride the waves on their Stand Up Paddleboards.
Meanwhile many surfers are content to surf, but they have noticed (how could you not) that the surfing breaks where they have always surfed, some for decades, are suddenly crowded (some would say infested) with Stand Up Paddle Boarders who, since they are riding the waves, can also be called Stand Up Paddle Surfers (or Stand Up Paddlesurfers).
Some even just call them Stand Up Surfers. Well in some cases this has led to some tensions in the water at surf breaks between the regular surfers (some Stand Up Paddle Boarders would call them “crawlers”) and the Stand Up Paddle Surfers.
This is an unfortunate aspect to the huge increase in the number of Stand Up Paddle Boarders but the fact is that many of those people who are inhabiting the traditional surfing breaks with their Stand Up Paddle Boards are the same people who used to surf those surfing breaks on regular surfboards.
Some of these SUP surfers will show up at the break one day on their Stand Up Board and then show up the next day on their regular surf board. People like variety and so they do whatever they feel like doing.
Actually those people who are very skilled at surfing aren’t so much of a problem at the traditional surf breaks because, even though they may get more waves on their Stand Up Boards, at least they are not in the way and not causing a hazard or danger to anyone. What really causes tension is when the surfing schools send beginners out to the surf breaks on Stand Up Boards and they just get in the way and possibly run into people, or get washed out by a big set so their board and paddle go flying through the line-up causing a great danger to anyone in the vicinity.
On some days when the surf is small and there are just a few poor lonely surfers out at the break they become surrounded by a whole bevy, or shall we say fleet, of Stand Up Paddle Boarders trying to become Stand Up Surfers.
Just a few years ago those few regular surfers would have been all by themselves, just Soul Surfing in the open ocean on little waves that they were content with, meditating on life between each set. Now between each set they are circled by large looming figures with huge boards and long paddles. These crawlers are helpless in the shadows of these encircling masses.
Oh well, times change, and that’s just the way it is. There has been talk of restricting certain breaks for only regular surfers but this usually goes nowhere since the Stand Up Paddle Surfers are also surfers, and many of them are some of the very best surfers so no one is about to ban them from the breaks where they grew up and where they have been all of their lives.
In fact most of the top Hawaiian watermen have shown up at the surf breaks on Stand Up Boards and many of them shred the largest waves now on their Stand Up Boards. Even some old kahunas have come out of the woodwork to try Stand UP. For whatever reason they really don’t surf much anymore, but when Stand Up Paddling came along they were able to get a renewed energy for journeying out onto the sea.
Maybe it is easier on their neck, arms, back, or some other part of their aging and aching body, but for whatever reason they started venturing out onto the sea again. Enjoying the open ocean. Enjoying the exercise. Remembering their youth and revisiting all of the old surf breaks.
And many have said what a joy it was to see again those surf breaks in a new way on a Stand UP Paddle Board, to see the coral reefs and the rock formations through the blue water. To gaze far out to sea and to look to the shore and to remember, and to catch waves again.
Also showing up on the water are many middle aged women who were never seen there before. Perhaps they enjoyed the beach, maybe a swim, but they never surfed or wanted to for whatever reason. But when they hopped on a Stand Up Board and got their first taste of the open sea on a calm water day they were hooked.
And so they started showing up in groups of two, three, even four or five Stand Up Paddle Boarding women, skipping their aerobics or Pilates and instead opting for the ocean, the great blue sea.
And they too would eventually meander over to the surf breaks and suddenly get a taste of what it was like to ride a wave! And then there are the proud parents with their tiny tots…the Stand Up Paddle Board gives them a chance to take their youngster out on the front of their board and to catch some small waves as they little one smiles from ear to ear.
When the tot is a bit older they get their own miniature Stand Up Paddle Board and there they are alongside the parent, first just putting along near the shore, then trailing them out a bit deeper and suddenly they too are Stand Up Paddle Surfing, often sharing a party wave with the parent.
Even the most crusty grumpy longboarder frowning in the lineup with a scowl and bitter scorn for the squadrons of invading Stand Up Paddle Boarders has to smile at these adorable tykes catching waves with their progenitors.
And so the sport grows and we journey out onto the water standing tall on two feet, land mammals revisiting that place from whence we came, the primordial ooze we somehow figured out how to crawl up out of, first semi-amphibious and then firmly claiming the land as our own.
Yet the water beckons us back and so we go, yet still we must stand tall on our Stand Up Paddleboard gazing down into that aqueous land of our ancient ancestors, so far we have come, yet here we are, back in touch with our roots, standing on a firm surface yet paddling over the fluid deeps, old and young, surfing stars and arthritic working class stiffs – the ocean belongs to no one except everyone and the Stand Up Paddle Board is returning many who had forgotten or never know their roots back to that very place.