Word: surfs
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...expect to wax poetically about a 19th century French painter. But then Hiva Oa is not your run-of-the-mill tourist island. With just 2,000 lucky inhabitants and one hotel, it's a place where the sight of a boy washing his horse in the surf on an empty black-sand beach, or copra drying in someone's front yard, is common. Hiva Oa is the second largest island in the Marquesas, a distinct group of 14 isles within French Polynesia, located about three hours northeast of the French Polynesian capital Papeete. It's the kind...
...called for short, looks exactly as it sounds: you stand on a large surfboard and propel yourself forward with a paddle. But, unlike traditional surfing, you don't have to wait for the waves. In fact, SUP, which is wildly popular, can be done on lakes, rivers, pools or any sufficiently large body of water. "It's completely blown up in the past five years and every spring it just blows up even more," says Jim Brewer, 45, a painting contractor who, in October 2008 and in spite of everyone calling him nuts, opened Blueline Stand-Up Paddle Surf...
Three weeks ago, for instance, while regular surf shops around the country were struggling to stay afloat, Brewer's store sold 16 boards - which start at about $1,500 - in one day. "If I had opened a surf shop eight months ago, we would have been out of business right now, no doubt," he says. Instead, Brewer, who also works as a distributor, fields calls for paddleboards from kayak and surf shops all over the country. "They know that's the only thing they can sell right now," says Brewer, who compares the sport's skyrocketing trajectory to snowboarding, which...
...while SUP enthusiasts have became a daily dot on the horizon of many a coastal California city, it's the market for lakes and rivers that has everyone really excited, says Oahu native and former carpenter Blane Chambers, 45, whose company Paddle Surf Hawaii was one of the world's first major makers and distributors of paddleboards. "The flat-water market is just growing everyday," says Chambers in his Hawaiian drawl, explaining that his sales rep in Minnesota is "so excited" after doing the rounds at kayak shops in that lake-filled state. "It's crazy how fast this thing...
When Paddle Surf Hawaii started in July 2006, Chambers would sell two or three boards out of his garage each month. Today, after his business grew 900% between 2007 and 2008, the boards are shipped by the container load. Chambers sells about 1,000 per month, including more than 150 a month out of his central Oahu shop. Chambers, who lost 40 lbs from stand-up paddle surfing, says, "We can't expand fast enough. We can't even supply everybody." (See pictures of a preppy summer vacation at LIFE.com...