“The minute my feet hit a stand-up paddleboard I was in love,” says Suzi DeMaio-Parmentier. She’s hooked. More than most, this Hobie® Ambassador lives and breathes SUP. The sport featured heavily in her wedding.
After a quick ceremony at a courthouse to exchange vows, Suzi, her then-new husband Nate and a great group of friends gathered for a special reception. Suzi, aboard her red Apex and Nate with his yellow Elite Tour, were celebrated by an all-SUP party.
She paddles every chance she finds. Suzi lives in the Grand Canyon state. Known as an arid land to many, in truth Arizona is a wonderful place to paddle.
Stacked boards serve as her coffee table, mounted onto walls in the living room and bedroom. The beautiful colors of the varied boards are wall art for Suzi and Nate. She brings SUP storage right into her air-conditioned home. Mostly, she claims, to maintain the integrity of the SUPs’ construction in Arizona’s triple digit summers.
“Arizona is amazingly vast. I broke out a map of the state and found a lot of blue,” she says. She set a goal that has kept her motivated, intrigued – and happy. “I decided to paddle every body of water I could find. My first Hobie was a white Elite 12’6, and I would take it everywhere and even camp off it. I just strapped all my gear through my leash and the rest just sat on the deck in dry bags. Happily here, we mainly SUP calm water.”
So far, Suzi has researched 70 drop-ins in Arizona alone. She and Nate are working on number 35, which is on the schedule for this month. Suzi logs all of her SUP explorations on the Arizona Standup Paddle List Facebook page. Some are a challenging drive to reach, some are only half full when arriving, but all are beautiful, with geology as diverse as canyon cliffs and rounded boulders.
Suzi has been SUP paddling Arizona for seven years. She fondly recalls the early days, when people would point to the board atop her station wagon and invariably ask where she planned to find a surf break. She has plenty of company now on moonlight paddles, river runs, for SUP fitness and education. Racing was a big interest to her in the first few years, but over time other SUP disciplines appealed. She still loves the narrow feel of the Apex and yellow Apex 4R, and enjoys switching between a variety of board styles for her outings.
“I think it’s amazing,” she says. SUP is tremendously diverse. Suzi uses her boards for exercise and stretching, pick up trash on the waters edge, runs class 1 and 2 rivers, and even hikes in with her Hobie inflatable 10’6 before pumping it up and paddling back to her car.
“When I first started I was very excited to see the full moon rise on the water, so monthly outings were always a priority especially on a warm summer night, when being on the water mid-day was over 100 degrees. Our friends enjoy our day or overnight outings, so we all pack a bit of food, paddle to wonderful coves and sometimes will beach/BBQ, just like we live on a coast,” she says.
Here are three of Suzi’s favorite places to SUP in Arizona:
Saguaro Lake: Watch for bighorn sheep and bald eagles on this stunning lake close to bustling Phoenix.
Blue Ridge Reservoir: When it swelters down south, climb the Mogollon Rim to paddle beneath the shade of pine trees.
Patagonia Lake State Park: Reserve your own remote island campsite and enjoy spectacular birding at this border-region flyway.
