John Baeyens

I just booked my tickets, leaving to Brazil on October 20th and many friends will follow suit the week afterwards. 
After a dreadful grey Belgian climate, I didn’t count more than 5 days where we had a perfect blue sky for more than 6 hours in a row, summer, at last. 
I’m especially eager to go swimming in the sea again.  I usually take my bodyboard out.  Rio has more than 45 surf spots, unfortunatelly with a very low consistency.  Unless I decide to take my bike for a ride to Joatinga, which I never do alone, the waves are mostly disappointing.
And I’m a person who has very low ‘fuzz’ pain barrier when it comes to sports.  Which is why I’ll never take up kite surfing, golfing or even tennis.  I’m the kind of person who likes to grab a board, his inline skates, grab a canoe/rowing boat on the watersportbaan.

If there’s one sport I kick it, it’s wildwater canoeing.  Especially on sea.  Only Rio, is not the place for it; mostly because it’s too hectic to carry the boat into the water.  And it’s way to warm to boil in a Canoe.

In 2006 I heard of Stand Up Paddle surfing for the first time.  I didn’t pay too much attention to it.
It was only when I saw this video that I grasped its potential.

Basically I could walk 4 blocks to Ipanema posto 6, drop my board in the sea, paddle down to Copacabana or Leblon and enjoy the surf, even the mushy waves.

It’s the perfect combination of everything I like: the sea, waves, my canoe and bodyboard skills, skatye equilibrum, low fuzz and the ‘any day works’ factor.
First I need a massive longboard of more than 3,5 meter long, 70 cm wide and 5 cm wide.  That I can find in Rio.  The paddle will be more of an issue.  You need a canoe-style paddle which is about 15cm taller than your own height, in my case that’s a paddle of at least 2m10.

Paddle surfing seems to take of in Brazil, let’s hope they’ll have the gear in my Rio surf shops.