Stand Up Paddle Boarding Portland

So I started paddle boarding this summer as wanting something new and fun to do with my son Joshua and hopefully get some friends to join me sometime. I had always admired looking at this who would SUP in the ocean and so I became inspired to start learning. 

I like to try and get my son outside doing adventurous things me so he will have some pretty cool memories and learn new skills. I always say that you won’t have anything great to talk about when you stay inside playing video games. Joshua thought it was going to be boring and did not want to go unless we could take our dog. So June 6th, I called the rental place in Portland and they where more than happy to let us take our dog Riley. Riley was having too much fun riding Joshua’s board then jumping off to swim to mine. He would go between the two boards several time. This day happened to be the Rose festival weekend in Portland in which the river is crowded with boats. All the boaters seemed to enjoy watching Riley getting a free ride on the SUP. We started out sitting down when the boats would pass (or Riley was about to jump off the board) because they would leave big waves for us to try and ride out and not fall from. Eventually we learned to ride it out while standing. This was such a fun day. Seeing all the other people out of the water, laying down sunbathing on the board, enjoying the river and seeing Portland from river.When we were done Joshua told me how much fun he had and he was not expecting to like it. 

July 19th we went with some friends, Christina and her son Harrison, who where inspired by our last trip. I had been asked by Next Adventure in Portland if they could use some of my photos from some of my adventures this past year for advertisement, which I said yes, so they gave us all our rental equipment that day at no cost! My friend and I paddled for nearly two hours up river. It was very peaceful which not as many boaters but several kayakers. In typical PNW fashion everyone you pass is super friendly. I am glad we paddled up river first and I highly recommend it because coming back is a breeze. We had left the boys to enjoy there own time SUPing and when we came back we found the boys jumping off the Tilikum bridge lower support area filming themselves. They where very careful to not let go of the boards and let them float down river thank goodness. For Christina and I we had a fun and peaceful day. They boys had an extremely fun time and something cool to talk about. Now Joshua and I are hoping to get our own boards for next year!