Click here to join our group on Face­book.

World­wide, 10 mil­lion chil­dren die each year from pre­ventable dis­eases. We’re par­tic­i­pat­ing in Swim 4 Life to raise money and aware­ness for Sur­fAid International’s life-saving pro­grams.  Help us sup­port Sur­fAid Inter­na­tional USA by join­ing the Surftech Aqua Missles and/or mak­ing a dona­tion to this very nec­es­sary and wor­thy organization.

Thank you, in advance for your sup­port of us and our efforts to reduce death and suf­fer­ing from pre­ventable dis­ease in iso­lated regions of the world.

The idea to do a SUP expe­di­tion came to life a lit­tle over a year ago. Ty and I were on the road to Out­door Retailer and had just spent 2 ½ hours at an Arizona/Utah bor­der sta­tion - we didn’t have a US DOT # for our vehi­cle, let alone that num­ber posted in a vis­i­ble spot on our truck. It was hot and we were tired.

We were granted per­mis­sion by the agents to con­tinue down the road, and as we left their office, he pointed us to the near­est reser­voir – 3 miles up the road. We got a solid pad­dle in shortly after and then again at dusk. In surf­ing terms, EVENING GLASS-OFF. But we weren’t surf­ing, we were deep in the heart of land-locked Utah. Some­time between that dou­ble pad­dle ses­sion, Ty Zulim had sug­gested the idea of a self-sustained, multi-day expe­di­tion. It sounded inter­est­ing and I wanted to be a part of it.

**

The next sev­eral months, the idea was brought up spo­rad­i­cally. It always sounded like a great idea to me and I was always inter­ested in the “explor­ing new frontiers”-side of SUP. From the time the idea was first brought up to the time we actu­ally started our adven­ture, Ty and I had given, maybe, 5 or 6 SERIOUS hours of thought and prepa­ra­tion to this excur­sion. In hind­sight, we could have eas­ily used another 15–20 hours of prepping.

We had asked a few of our friends their thoughts of where to go if we were to do such an adven­ture. Mike Mowrey put us in touch with Kurt Wren­ner who had recently kayaked down the Sacra­mento River. He pro­vided a brief out­line of his 110-mile trip via email that we used as a trip out­line. Ty and I decided we would leave Fri­day, Oct 17^th early morn­ing from Red­ding, CA and be at the Mason Bridge State Park at noon on Sun­day, Oct 19^th. We thought we could pad­dle 85 miles in just over two days.

We took our 12’1 Lairds over to Pad­dle Power in New­port Beach, CA, where Jim Smi­ley out­fit­ted our boards with a bungie and tie-down sys­tem and loaned us a few dry bags. He styled us out as we talked story and threw back a beer or three.

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A sam­ple of our new 8’11″ Lil’ Dar­ling by Gerry Lopez came in which we’ve been anx­iously antic­i­pat­ing.  The 8’11″ is just one of three boards

we are intro­duc­ing in the Gerry Lopez line.  It’s a scaled down ver­sion of his 9’6 and 10′ Surf Music mod­els, high­lighted by a quad fin setup.

Although the surf wasn’t epic, the chest to head-high, high-tide con­di­tions were still enough to put this board through the paces.

After two hours of water time, JG pro­vided this first impres­sion: “The board felt great, very sta­ble for 205lb’er, but super loose and fun.”

For the entire Gerry Lopez offer­ing, click here.

The Kayak Surf Fes­ti­val, held annu­ally at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, CA, is the largest con­test in the surf kayak­ing world and attracts the best ath­letes and high end vehi­cle designs this planet can pro­duce.  For the first time ever, Stand Up Pad­dle Surf­ing will be added to the event com­pe­ti­tion list. There will be two divi­sions within the SUP com­pe­ti­tion -  Inter­me­di­ate and Elite. The event will be held March 20^th — 22^nd, 2009.  Reg­is­tra­tion to com­pete closes on the 1^st of March.

For more infor­ma­tion, click here.

Reg­is­ter online, click here.

If you thought SUP would slow down because of the cold weather, think again.  Jim Misiewicz of The Out­post of Hol­land and friends have been charg­ing Lake Michi­gan despite the cold tem­per­a­tures.  Jim was kind enough to send us a sum­mary of their recent adventures:

FEB 3^rd — Here’s a few pic­tures of me and a buddy (Brian) pad­dling into Lake Michi­gan on Tues­day.  10 Degrees.  We could only pad­dle about 100 yards into Lake Michi­gan because of the ice build up.  This area called Port Shel­don (just North of Hol­land) has open water in the win­ter due to a Power Plant dis­charge of warm water, thus, keep­ing the inland lake open and the mouth of Lake MI.

FEB 15^th — Just another great day of INCREDIBLE Michi­gan paddling!

Joe Gra­ham and myself exited Lake Macatawa in Hol­land and pad­dled south to Saugatuck into the Kala­ma­zoo River.  About a four hour pad­dle.  The ice for­ma­tions were that of some­thing I’ve never seen before.  It’s as if the Lake opened and allowed a 1/4 mile cor­ri­dor to pad­dle through.  I could not imag­ine expe­ri­enc­ing this on any­thing other than an SUP.

If you have sto­ries, pho­tos or an expe­ri­ence to share, email your adven­ture to SUP@Surftech.com and we’ll help you share it.