Battle of The Paddle Series: The Starboard Team Lands At Dana Point

Anne Marie-Reichman gives us the low down from the road at the Battle of the Paddle. Awesome pictures from the event that you’ll only get from Anne Marie-Reichman.

My flight takes of at 10.25 pm Kahului, Maui – and before I know I land at 6.25 the next morning (local time) in LAX; Lost Angeles. It’s called “the red eye flight” as you only sleep a few hours before you hit the ground and get up already.

Andrea Moller and I spoke on Maui about the Battle of the Paddle and decided we would team up in our travels and accommodation. As we both have boards waiting for us at Dana point, we decide to take the bus and arrive at “Dana Point Marina Inn” a few hours later.

The weather is beautiful and our hotel is close to the event side; about 10 minute walk. When we walk to the beach, we see fellow “Mauians” and Starboard stand up paddle board team riders: Bart de Zwart and Connor Baxter.

It’s good to see familiar faces and we all head down to the beach, where we meet Declan (starboard distributor US) to see which boards go to whom.

A truckload of boards arrive and we all help carrying down boards - and setting up ”starboard camp”. I meet a lot of people from California who I have emailed with, but never met: Wardog, Dan (another team rider), Andrew and loads more.

Everyone is so excited and the energy is great!



Rumors go that over 700 people have entered, which actually sounds scary…. Is everyone able to hold on to their board? (one of my questions as there’s a shore break hitting the beach).  Bart, Andrea and I decide to get our ‘calfornian paddle groove’ on and take some waves on our race boards. It’s fun and very very nice to get in the water. Plus the boards are easy to controle taking head hight waves to the shore. (I did put on a leash… just in case).



After my session I check the beach; Wow! So many brands, stands, flags and banners are put up; and ready to rock for tomorrow. From an event organizers point of view, I am impressed! So much is happening, so many people participating and working hard to get it all going. Wow!

From 5 pm onwards, there’s a great dinner awaiting all the riders in town, at the Hobie store. There’s also a band, there’s an awesome vibe and… a lot of familiar faces from Maui, the Molokai-Oahu crossing, the European paddle championship event (I did in France), Fuerte Ventura and from my own event; the SUP 11-City Tour. The whole paddle community is here together and everyone is excited for the coming up races over the weekend.

Andrea and I head home early as the entry tomorrow is at 7am. That means breakfast at 6am, so yeah, it’s bed time now.
Anne-Marie

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