Social Distancing - SUP Paddling Tips

SUP Paddling Tips

You should be no stranger to the term social distancing right now. But even if you, as a SUP paddler, are not familiar with the concept of social distancing, you should know that you’ve been practicing it all along when paddle boarding. But you might not be familiar with it. Check out the post below to see how to continue practicing and utilizing it when stand up paddle boarding.

Find New Places

If possible, take time and find a place that’s less popular than the regular place you go to. Less people means less contact and lower risks. If you can find a location that allows you to have the whole place to yourself, that would be ideal, however unlikely.

Bring Company

Now might not be the best time for gathering, but things are a little bit different on the water. It allows you to communicate and reconnect with others while keeping your distance. If you intend to arrange for a gathering between friends and family on the water, here are a few tips you should know when you do so.

1. Keep your group in a small size

In paddle boarding, if a group consists of more than 3 people, it can basically be considered a big group because we typically paddle alone or with one friend, tops. So it’s for the best you stick with the way you do things in the old days. Bring a friend or your spouse for the company is perfectly okay, but more people would make keeping the distance harder.

2. Keep yourself at least 6ft away from others at all times

The purpose of social distancing is to avoid contact with others as much as possible. So this is obvious that we should stay away from others at all times, even on the water. 6ft would be the minimum distance to keep for the safety and health of yourself and other people.

3. Avoid touching other people’s equipment

During an outbreak of a contagious disease, an effective way to stop the virus from spreading is to avoid human contact, that includes avoiding touching things that others have touched before. It’s to avoid the virus from being passed on to another person. When paddle boarding, just bring and use your own gears and avoid touching and using other people’s gears.

4. Don’t share food or water with others

When talking about avoiding human contact, that includes no sharing of food and water with other people, no matter how much you want to do it. Sharing food and water could be even more risky than touching other people’s gears. So you should probably have everything planed out properly in advance and divide the food or make sure everyone’s got their own food before actually starting the SUP trip.

If you are going solo on your paddle boarding session, then congratulations, you won’t have to stick to the above rules. You will have more space and freedom to move around freely, provided that there are no other paddlers nearby. But there are still safety risks. If you are going alone to a remote place without many people or no other people at all, it means there will be no one to help you when you are in danger. So you need to make sure you are skilled enough to paddle by yourself and not to put yourself in any kind of danger. If you are going solo, make sure you have the needed paddling skills and swimming skills, wear proper suits and bring necessary gears. Also, be sure to inform your family and friends where you are going. SUP touring and exploring is one of the best ways for relaxation and fun. If you haven’t done this before, here’s everything you need to know about SUP touring and exploring. You can have a great time on your paddleboard.

The coronavirus is serious and you can actually protect yourself from it by wearing a face mask. The purpose is to prevent droplet contact. So if possible, wear a mask when you are going as a group or somewhere with the presence of other paddlers even if it's not the kind of paddling experience you would want. But a 6ft distance from each other should be enough for protection especially when you are on the water without many people around and it’s windy.