Nicola and Morgan share their story of working towards SUP Inland Open Water Leaders.

Like many, we began SUPing more regularly during lockdown and created a community stand up paddleboarding and wild swimming group to inspire others to join us. The water is our happy place and offered timely mental and physical health benefits. In May this year, we set up our business Moffat SUP hire to service the growing demand for stand up paddleboarding in south west Scotland. 

We started off with simply hiring paddleboards but were soon inundated with requests for supervised sessions. Morgan researched several courses and gained anecdotal feedback from others on their quality. Conversations with very knowledgeable Sean from Wild River convinced us that the SUP Inland Open Water Leader was right course for us, with accreditation from a well-respected association. The open water focus was a good fit for the lochs we paddle on and the leadership aspect would allow us to lead groups of short trips and provide the basis from which to conduct taster sessions.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 day training with Sean. It was challenging, particularly as we were the only two participants who were not already outdoors water sports instructors but we were able to draw on their experience and share our own. Sean encouraged us without making us feel out of our depth (see what I did there!). We felt he was an experienced and professional instructor who runs a tight ship, always with safety first. This focus on safety and risk assessment has been invaluable as we were planning our new taster sessions. We learned so much and gained a huge amount of confidence during the two days. 

Together we carried our first fully booked taster session on the loch with a group of 6 participants last week and used several techniques to manage the group and keep us all safe. Everyone was smiling and felt a sense of achievement at the end and we got some lovely feedback too.



We are planning to continue these weekly throughout the summer, building our business and sharing our paddle boarding experience with the community. 

Watch this space to see what we have planned for the future!