Out and about – virtual stand up paddle boarding trips/holidays in the comfort of your own home.

Out and about – virtual stand up paddle boarding trips/holidays in the comfort of your own home.

Shouldn’t you be on your annual early-season SUP trip right about now? Maybe you were waiting for Easter hols before hitting go. Or perhaps that paddling holiday was a few weeks away, but now not likely to happen due to global health events. So what to do?

The World Wide Web is flooded with inventive ways of keeping entertained. From rave sheds, complete with thumping beats and strobe lights, to stand up paddlers being splashed with water whilst ‘paddling the bungee’; trying to get a regular SUP fix is still a thing.

Taking this a step further creating a ‘holiday ambience/vibe’ around your virtual paddling is one solution to the SUP trip conundrum during lockdown. If it’s a sandy escape you’re looking for then scattering some around your SUPing area can be a good shout – kiddy play pits a good source for the grainy yellow stuff. Alternatively, if you have to be inside, then sand coloured carpet could work. Failing that colour in some bits of paper yellow and place beneath your board.

If you’re outdoors then you can utilise things like inflatable paddling pools and any offspring willing to help splash you with water. Wear your shorts/bikini or lighter weight paddling apparel; don’t forget your sunnies and make sure you apply plenty of sunscreen. (Fortunately the UK’s weather, in a lot of places at least right now, is bright and warm enough for this to not be a chore). There are lots of other ways you can recreate SUP in home or back garden –  let us know your ideas.

Then you’ll need to create the actual ambience of being abroad on away on a trip.

Plenty of ‘tools’ are available to help with this. Spotify, for instance, has lots of options to help create an illusion of SUP. From Comfortable Californian Ocean Waves sounds –

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To Stimulating Pebbly Ocean loops –

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There’re literally hundreds. You could have something like this playing out of smart speakers or coming through your ear buds, depending on how crowded your location is and not potentially wanting to annoy some with your antics.

Another option is utilising something like Radio Garden https://radio.garden/which gives access to radio stations across the globe. Perhaps you fancy a stab at some French SUP action down Biscarosse way? No probs; click on the relevant station link to have your space filled with French accents, and voila! instantaneous thoughts of Francais SUP and you being virtually transported to the land of baguettes and berets –

Maybe you then combine the above with some oceanic sounds via another device (x2 soundways) to give even more of an authentic paddling experience. Basically, getting creative will yield best results. We know it’s not the real deal but during times like this needs must. Using your imagination is a must but it’s something fun to mess about with and while away the hours until actual paddling is back on the cards. Oh, and we’ll add that a McConks inflatable stand up paddle board is perfect for this kind of thing as you’ll have no fear of damaging your SUP whilst messing about on land.

Let us know what you’re doing to make sure your paddle trip still goes ahead during lockdown.