SOPOSUP

Last night I told my wife, Donna, about the name change and she reminded me that I would lose a fairly wide spectrum of readers if I limit WHAT SUP to Surf. While I love to surf, I’ve also loved paddling through the South Florida mangroves; around the harbor by Jeff Clark’s Paddle Surf, through the Marina at 101 Surf Sports, along the kelp beds off New Brighton Beach, and down a river in search of Manatees.

From a relationship point of view, paddling promotes connection. We strap the boards on the roof and hit the road. We plan a day around getting in the water, exploring new locations, getting great gobs of time out in nature, and after exercising all those muscles we get a nice meal out. It’s been pretty romantic at times.

Plus there’s such a huge variety of topics to discuss like board selection, sites to SUP, fitness, diet, technique and SUP shops. I did a whole post on SOPOSUP, a cool little shop in Portland, Maine. We never got in the water, but being with the owner, reviewing his blog, and checking out the local surf, which was flat, was just fabulous.

I remember the first blog post like it was yesterday. It was from this past mother’s day when I sat on the sidelines with a bit of a cold. It was Donna who wanted to paddleboard. It was Donna to get in the water first. It was Donna who inspired me to give it a try.

She’s even asked about paddling at night. Here’s what it might look like from a pin I found.

Stand Up Paddleboarding for Life will still include SUP Surfing, where my little wave passion ignites in cool water.

SOPOSUP is what. We met the owner, Raf Adams, at his store in South Portland, just a few miles from the surf at Higgins Beach off Cape Elizabeth. After driving around Portland for a few days we realized that all you need is for the wind to lie down and there’s paddle boarding everywhere. There’s so much water it’s just nuts.

The store was stocked with surf, glide, and race boards. I was drooling over the lovely shape of the Focus boards. Raf told us about great October waves they’d had at Higgins.

This Higgins right was photographed by Dustin Turin and it makes me want to see the place on a nice little 2-3 foot day.

We bought a SOPOSUP T Shirt and the latest STANDUP JOURNAL then drove out to Cape Elizabeth to watch the very flat ocean and grab a pretty solid bowl of clam chowder.

I took a minute to stick my hand in the water. It was cool but not the high 30s that settles in during the winter. Raf told us he wore 7mm boots and wanted 9mm. He’s seen below on the Presumpscot in January 2013