This month, Jenny Kalmbach and Morgan Hoesterey continued their environmental and standup paddleboarding adventures – this time traveling to Costa Rica where Jenny was born and raised. Starting in the capitol of San Jose, the girls and friends, including photographer Shannon Switzer, traveled to the Pacific coast to surf, paddle and raise awareness against plastic contamination in the ocean. Along the way, they paddled on Lake Arenal, around Isla del Ca–o, up rivers through Corcovado National Park and along the beautiful Costa Rican coastline.

Naish France is very happy to welcome Faustine Merret on it’s SUP team. Faustine, whose impressive sports career as a professional windsurfer has been turning heads since 1996, finally succumbed to the joys of SUP.

The UK can be dark, bleak and freezing cold in January and 2011 began with no exception, so Naish UK windsurfing team rider Jan Sleigh took off to Cape Verde in search of warm winter wind and waves and discovered an SUP playground.

Kai Lenny, SUP world champion, came back from the first event of this year’s tour a winner. We got a chance to pick his brain about the challenging conditions the riders faced at the Sunset Beach Pro this year and what Kai’s board choices were for the event.

It seems that with the wide variety of conditions that you guys encountered during the event (ranging from 12 foot waves to slightly over head high), you had to switch between different boards in order to match the conditions. What was your board choice for the big days?

The crowd gathered yesterday on Oahu’s North Shore to watch the finals of the 2011 Stand Up World Tour’s first event.

The Stand Up World Tour’s first event of the year wrapped up with the junior competition today as the competitors took to the water in two exciting heats. Naish was well represented with riders including Bernd Roediger (14), Ridge Lenny (13), Kody Kerbox (16) and Tucker Ingalls (14) who all put in solid performances.

Despite a week of iffy conditions and no wind, the WORLD SNOWKITEMASTERS 2011 finished with a bang on a killer last day.