Drysuits & Portable paddleboarding

The wind has been crazy lately, but it's finally blowing in a direction that we can make use of. Nick decided it would be a great opportunity to test the new ION Drysuit and paddles from Porthallow to Gylly beach in the 35mph southerly. We took his 14ft Inflatable and 3 piece paddle in my ridiculously impracticable Honda S2000. Point proven, SUP is now highly accessible regardless of the size of your mode of transport. Inflatable SUP's are changing the things we can do... Its awesome!


This trip is only 10 miles but the wind is serious. The main objective is to see how warm and dry he can stay in crazy conditions. The suit is an absolute breeze to get into, but it does need a wingman to zip up the rear. It's made from Neoprene so its light and as it turns out, ridiculously warm! A couple of cool features include a huge pocket on the leg for storage and a crutch zip for sprinkling the garden!

I didnt mention it but I will now... The road to the drop off point is a winding network of Cornish A-roads. It's an 50 minute drive and that's not going slowly! It's about 25 miles by road but 10 miles back by sea as the crow fly's. Nick beat me home!! I couldnt believe it!! He'd worked bloody hard and commented that he wont be paddling that hard in Alaska but wanted to push his limits in the suit.

A critical lesson was learned on this trip. Get all the air out of the suit before you take a plunge! As the confused, wavy sea forces him to take a dip in the ocean, the air rushed up through the neck seal and all the water flooded in! On this occasion he was pleased as he was absolutely boiling in the suit, but you would want that to happen in 2 degrees of iceberg infested waters! Not if he values his crown jewels anyway!