One of the myths heard often is that stand-up paddle is an ancient Hawaiian ritual, but historically Captain James Cook did no’t observe it in the 18th century, nor did Robert Louis Stevenson see it in the 19th century, (Although Cook did report in his journal watching a canoeist catch a wave sitting down in Tahiti, and many of the early observers of Polynesian watermen may have seen canoe paddlers stand up to paddle across shallow reefs in search of fish to spear.) Although not ancient, the popularity of the modern sport of SUP does have its origination in the Hawaiian Islands. (The modern Hawaiian translation is Ku Hoe He’e Nalu; to stand, to paddle, to surf, a wave.) The first stand up paddle surfers emerged in Waikiki in the 1950s and 1960s, where the Beach Boys of Waikiki would stand on their long boards and paddle out with outrigger paddles to take pictures of the tourists learning to surf.

The renaissance of SUP can probably be tracked to a long summer flat spell in 2000, when serious watermen like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama on Maui and Brian Keaulana, Mel Pu’u and Bruce De Soto at Makaha, seized on the idea of paddling their tandem boards as fitness workouts. As the years went on they found themselves entering events such as the Moloka’i to O’ahu Paddleboard Race and Mākaha’s Big Board Surfing Classic. Now you can find Stand Up Paddle Surfers in many of the Outrigger and Paddleboard races as participants within their own division.

One difference between the modern idea of surfing and SUP is that the latter does not necessarily need a wave. In SUP, one can paddle on the open ocean, in harbors, on lakes, rivers or any large body of water. One of the advantages of Stand Up Paddle Surfing is the angle of visibility. Because of the standing height over the water one can see both deeper into the water and further across the surface of the water, allowing better visualization of features others lower above the water may not be able to see, whether it is the marine life in the harbors, lakes and coves or the incoming swells of the ocean marching on the horizon.