I'M STILL HERE - REALLY!

Oh where has the time gone???

It's now June and while I've been charging life full speed ahead as usual, I just paused for a second to look back and realized I haven't updated this blog since February. Holy dolphin farts!

A few comments by some awesome bloggers on some of my old posts (thanks to Jes at Begging For It and Heidi at TriAngel) made me realize how negligent I've been at sharing life's adventures.

The simple fact is I've been slammed. I work in real estate and this winter was crazy in this part of Florida. For whatever reason, the northern winter vacationers all decided to buy this year. It's a good thing because it means I'm not going in the direction of bankruptcy anymore, but the downside was definitely less time to write blogs, which I enjoy.

We did manage a few adventures between the chaos and I'm stoked to share them with you!

Bay to Breakers 100th Year 12k Race

Monterey Aquarium and Santa Cruz/Half Moon Bay

Blue Grotto & Devil's Den (Scuba Diving)

Bring it Wikiki!

It's contagious and I'm infected with S.U.P.

Keep the stoke ya'll and I'll promise to try and keep my blog a little more up-to-date in the future. I've obviously got a ton of reading to do in my Reader as I feel like I've lost touch with everyone.

It's contagious and I'm infected with S.U.P.

Knock them all you want (Lord knows I have). Call them what you will. Stand up paddle boards are here to stay. In the past decade these boards have gained popularity and seem to be spreading across the nation and world like a virus. From Hawaii to California to Florida to a random lake in Kansas the concept is absolutely brilliant. Simply put, you have the billion dollar plus marketing machine that is the modern day world of the surfing industry (although it seems only a small percentage of the people involved in that industry "actually surf) and NOW there's a way for EVERYONE to surf... well... kind of surf. The allure of "surfing" that this mass marketing machine has created across the globe is NOT something everyone can do. First off, you've got to have a beach geographically in reach. Then that beach has to have ridable waves and favorable conditions to learn. And finally, you have to have a little bit of athletic ability in conditioning, balance, strength and stubbornness. Learning to surf waves is not easy no matter who you are and a lot of people get frustrated and give up!
Now take a large stable board with a massive amount of floatation and give someone the ability to have a higher amount of environmental control -- the paddle -- and calm flat water for beginners and just about anyone can enjoy it on their first time. Just check out this picture! BRILLIANT! It looks like a surfboard. You stand on it. It must be surfing, right? I don't think so, but... well, that's the marketing brilliance of it.
Stand up paddle boarders take a lot of shit from surfers. This is probably in part because of a few SUP guys getting into situations where they don't belong. There are a lot of SUPs at my local break (one of the most crowded and territorial in Florida). I talk to the regular ones. They're nice guys and mean nobody harm. The trouble with SUPs is when they allow a beginner to get into a situation where nature would not allow them on a traditional surfboard. Then chaos soon follows and an out-of-control 11 or 12-foot board, paddle and out of shape human in the line up is bad for everyone. I will say in defense of SUPs. Anyone that knocks stand up paddle boards and says they don't belong in the surf needs to watch Laird Hamilton rip the hell of a few waves in this video here. Perhaps watching that very video influenced me.
After careful consideration and a lot of thought I decided to finally give it a try. My idea was simple; get two stand up paddle boards and Jenny and I can use them to explore the river while getting another type of cardio/core workout other than running and most importantly, it's on the water. Jenny was sold on the idea instantly when I pointed out to her some of the endurance SUP races held around the country. Something to train for!
We asked around, did research and eventually decided to buy a couple of SUP ATX boards. They are by far not the best boards ever made, however, for our budgets they get the job done. We got identical boards with different paint jobs. They are epoxy and they included the deck pad, fin and carbon fiber paddle in the discounted price. As popular as these boards are I know that I can always sell them on Craigslist without losing much money and buy different ones if needed.

As I clicked the "order now" button on the website I felt as if I was betraying the brotherhood of surfers. I was excited and weirded out at the same time.


Jenny was 100-percent EXCITED when she clicked the order button!

We had them shipped to my office. You should have seen the look on my co-worker's faces! The box was so big it hardly fit in my truck.

Later that night we opened them up in my living room. Jenny is ready to go! Each board is 11' feet long and 4.5" thick and 28-pounds light.

We picked a calm, wind-protected canal for our first attempt. Neither of us had ever tried it. The plan I devised was to push off on our knees and paddle around for a bit on our knees to acclimate and then stand up. I was shocked to see Jenny hop up to her feet only after a few seconds on her knees. It was even easier than I thought!


In only a few weeks we've been exploring all sorts of waterways. I own a touring kayak and I can confidently say I'm going to sell it and never kayak again. You can see SO much more on SUPs. So far I've paddled within a few feet of redfish, flounder, manatees, dolphin and even a bonnet-head shark. It's also been a great learning tool for Jenny and her surfing. She has practiced her paddle and pop-up on the SUP in a controlled environment and is now taking it to the waves on her normal surfboard. It's helping and I'm stoked!

Bring it Wikiki!

Sometimes I get stuck working the weekends. I try and limit this awful behavior to only customers that I believe will be NOT wasting my time. This means they have the means (cash) and mindset (pressure) to buy something. If I work with someone for an entire weekend and there's no contract by Sunday afternoon I feel like I've just D.N.F.'ed a race.

This happened one recent weekend. Both days experienced good surf in the mornings and blown out conditions in the afternoons. Both days I worked in the mornings. I even put off my long run until Monday morning. By Sunday late afternoon I was frustrated at being foolishly suckered into working the weekend with this costumer that now wants to wait until the Fall to buy something. I can't blame the guy -- financially it makes more sense for him. But, I'm still out two days with no exercise!

A visiting friend from Denmark text messaged me saying he was still on the beach and Jenny and I decided we'd go hang out with him the last few hours of daylight. I threw the two SUP boards on top of the Jeep and we were off. The beach was wind swell choppy as expected and after taking a look it didn't look good for either of them to attempt a paddle out on one of these beast of a boards.

We hung out for a bit shooting the breeze and then I had an idea. What if Jenny and I paddled out together on one SUP board? Tandem? That way I could control things and make wave decisions. The more I thought about it the more I liked it. Next thing I know I'm carrying one of the SUPs down to the surf with no paddle. Jenny's right behind me as we walk out waste deep. The water is aquamarine with more visibility than average. It's beautiful despite the chop.

I have her jump up on the mid-section of the board like she is going to knee-paddle (although she's never need paddled before) and I jump up on the tail section so I can manage our center of gravity and keep us from periling. We get into a pattern of paddling together and start punching through several small walls of white wash. It's amazing how fast we're moving paddling together. Jenny thinks she isn't contributing, but I know better because we're moving faster than I can paddle this thing alone.

We sit on the outside a while and I study the ocean. The waves are coming in sets of 3 or 4 and they're slightly crossed up. Not unusual for New Smyrna Inlet. Nobody is out but us. Jenny thinks people are staring at us from the beach. I could care less. I turn us into a wave and yell, "paddle!"

The timing is off, the wave breaks early and a wall of whitewash engulfs us.

I make a mental adjustment for our timing and we nail the next wave. I don't turn us, but let the board go straight as I hop up to my feet. "Stand up," I yell at Jenny. She's still on her knees. I can hear her laugh and know she's stoked. I pull her up to her feet by her arms and there we are surfing this choppy knee high wave for all it's worth - her goofy and me regular. We surf almost to the sand for quite a long ride. Jenny turns around smiling ear to ear and simply says, "again!"



It was amazing how easy it was on such a stable board and how I could control everything from the tail section. On several waves I had to almost lean my entire body off the tail to keep us from periling on the drop-in. Jenny's weight counter-acted mine and kept us from stalling. There's a few mental adjustments to make, but for the most part surfing tandem is a blast and not too difficult given the right conditions. Our combined weight of around 280 pounds was nothing the SUP board couldn't handle. It was only after that I realized how doing this could be an amazing learning tool for beginner surfers. Jenny made a few comments about how intense the paddle into each wave was from her perspective and how when she watches other surfers it looks easy. Then I realized that by doing this she was seeing the surfing experience basically through my eyes - the timing, the positioning, the decision making, all of it. What a great learning tool I've stumbled upon!

We'll definitely be doing this again!