My First Paddle Rave

Raves are something pretty common, that most people have heard about. Basically, it is a whole lot of people in a large venue listening to DJs playing electronic dance music and everybody going crazy. I've been to some myself, a number of years ago. But this week I participated for the first time in a new spin on that: a paddle rave!

It's quite an interesting idea. In short, you put the DJs on a boat equipped with some powerful speakers and let everybody know that they should show up at a given date and time... in the middle of a lake. Last Wednesday afternoon, one such paddle rave was organized on Lake Union, right in the middle of Seattle. The preferred way to join was with a standup paddle board (hence why "paddle rave") so that you could dance to the music, but there were a few kayaks as well, including my own, and even some small boats.

The location of this paddle rave was the waters close to (but not next to) the Gas Works Park. Apparently these raves are becoming quite popular because, as I got closer, I could see an enormous amount of people in paddle boards. It was truly crazy, I had never seen anywhere before this many people floating so close together. You had a feeling that you could walk over the various paddle boards, and some people were trying that, with various degrees of success. In the organizer's boat, a DJ was cranking up the sound and everybody was incredibly excited. Some people had brought coolers on their boards and were enjoying some cold beverages. Others were dressed with what can be described as I-want-to-be-dressed-for-a-rave-but-I-may-fall-into-the-water kind of fashion. There were people of all ages, and everybody was very nice to each other: it's not easy to control your direction or position with this many people, so everybody kept touching each other's boards or kayaks, and everybody was fine with that.

Differently than a regular rave, a paddle rave cannot go on all night long, for safety reasons. So, as the sun was setting, the organizers turned off the music and people started rowing back to the nearest boat launches. It ended up being a beautiful sunset as well, which closed with a bow what had been an amazing afternoon. I loved it and I'm looking forward to go again.















Location: Lake Union, Seattle, WA, USA

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