30 Aug 2019
By Petra Maass
I bumped into Brett and the rest of the Ditton Paddlers last summer and was able to find my river legs by borrowing one of their boards on a few occasions. Luck had it that one of the members, Greg, was selling his nearly new board and I immediately snapped it up and made it mine. I was initially tentative, as I was also introducing my pooch to paddleboarding, so we stuck to warm balmy days.
But this year I got properly hooked. The biggest difference to my enthusiasm for paddling made the electric pump I bought from MCS Watersports. Instead of spending 20 sweaty minutes pumping up my board by hand and giving up at a measly 10psi, I now plug it into my cigarette lighter and pose coolly by the car whilst the pump inflates my board to 15psi in about ten minutes. Love it! Best £70 I ever spent.
But the best thing about this summer’s paddling was the Ditton Paddling Whatsapp group. We now have roughly 100 members in the chat group and if I want to go I post time and place and within minutes other paddlers would reply to join me. Often, I know no more than their name, but my blind dates have been great so far and I have met lovely Viola, Roxanna and Angus that way.
I have been paddling most days making the most of the numerous heat spells we had this year and I never thought it possible, but I now suffer from land sickness as I am writing this! You know the feeling, when you have spent too much time aboard a boat and then you return to land and your body is still swaying?! Well, I managed to achieve that by paddleboarding for England this summer. Or maybe for Germany?
If you would like to join us and have lots of fun on and off the water, why no become a member.
Petra and her daughter, Mia 
Saluting the Sun
