Manly Kayak Centre

SUP.
No longer is it a greeting used in hip hop circles and by sad white men who think they are black men. It also stands for Stand Up Paddleboarding, a sport invented by surfers on days when the wind has packed up and shipped off somewhere warm and the sea is flatter than the script in an Adam Sandler movie (excepting Billy Madison of course, his one and only triumph. Ever see Little Nicky? Shudder.)
For $ 15 bucks an hour you hire a big, stable board and a one-​sided paddle. Jump on and off you go. It’s like standing on a huge door and floating about. Takes balance to get the hang of it and strength to get you where you wanna go, but by gum is it fun. And, as you might expect, falling off is the best bit.
These dudes got a killer spot, too — you can wend around the coastline checking out all the huge mansions and (ridiculously placed) housing commission blocks. Can’t wait to get back. Oh and they hire kayaks too. But those are for girls.

If you want to learn about Manly Kayay Centre read Morgan C’s review… if you want to learn about relationships then may I suggest you go kayaking with your loved one…
WOW — interesting things can happen in the water… let me tell you, this is a wonderful way to work out how well you can work as a team and how in-​sync you two really are… When two people are in a kayak they have to work together in order to move forward and navigate. If they don’t work as a team and communicate things can go terribly wrong and people can end up getting hurt…
If you want to see if you’re the «captain of the ship» or whether or not you and your «partner» are actually on the same team — there’s nothing like the plastic kayak and paddles to bring relationship issues to the surface…
A great social experiment.

Kayaking — one of those things that people seem to get excited about until about 20 minutes into it when they realise that it’s bloody knackering and pull up at the nearest beach and drink a few beers before paddling back again. That’s how it worked out for us last Sunday anyway. To be fair, we had the kayaks for 4 hours and there was no way I was going to be hooning (as much as you can at 5kph) around Manly Cove for that long! So instead we packed our little boats and paddled out and around a couple of bays and ended up on Collins Beach, where we stayed for 3 hours until it was time to float back.
The Manly Kayak Centre is located right near the ferry terminal — next to the Manly Wharf Bar — so it’s pretty hard to miss. It’s the building floating near the beach with a bunch of kayaks next to it! They give you a little map to show you where you can and cannot go, which means cutting over the ferries’ paths is a no-​no, due to high chance of death. And you can’t paddle to far south as there’s an imaginary black line that you cannot go over, otherwise you’ll be attacked (and probably eaten) by the cartoony whale from the map.
They also offer lessons, tours and various other water-​based activities, so check out the website for more details on those! Prices vary, depending on how long you want to go for and how many there are of you, but it starts at around $ 20 for one hour in a single. Although it’s good to get a double so you can rely on someone else when your arms get tired!