Odisha gets a feel of river surfing

CUTTACK: The Odisha Surfing and Paddling Association (OSPA) organized a surfing programme in Mahanadi river to create awareness about the sport and promote adventure tourism in the state.
Six surfers showed their skills on the still waters of Mahanadi covering a stretch of 30 km from Ghodabar village in Banki to Cuttack in the stand up paddle board on Friday.The board is specially designed to glide on the flat surface of river water. The surfers were Debabrata Das, Sanjay Samantray, founder of Rangers Adventure foundation, Joe Alaniz from Alaska, Yogi from Hawaii, Nacho from Sydney and Duh from China.
The surfers informed that the stand up paddle surfing is the latest craze that has dropped in on surfing hotspots and beaches all across the world. “People have the misconception that surfing is restricted to the rough waves of the sea. But in reality surfing can be done on the still waters of rives, lakes and other waterbodies too. The board is required to surf on the still waters and we wanted to make the people of Odisha aware about it,” said Debabrata Das, secretary of OSPA.
Das said rivers of Odisha have great potential for adventure tourism but it is not being encashed. “River surfing in the most loved water adventure sport worldwide and even Odisha has great potential for it.We will give a proposal to the state government to start surfing facility in Mahanadi river, which will be a huge boost to tourism,” he said.