ON BOARD: Destin-based GUSU spreading the passion for paddleboards (PHOTOS)

Skimming over the tranquil water is how Holiday Isle resident Steve Hill likes to take in a sunset over the Destin harbor. His vessel of choice is one of the area’s fast growing crazes — the stand-up paddleboard.

“I think it’s addictive,” Hill said. “Anybody can do it, and it’s good exercise.”

Hill, owner of Holiday Isle Beach Service since 1989, was looking for the new and upcoming thing to rent out on the beach, when a well-traveled friend told him how popular stand-up paddleboarding is getting in California and Australia.

“I’d never even tried it before,” Hill said. “Now I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be bigger than surfing before it’s over, because more people can do it.”

Once Hill gave it a try, he knew he wanted to sell the boards and add them to his line-up of watercraft rentals.

Hill’s wife came up with the name Get Up Stand Up Paddlesports, adopting the acronym GUSU, and Destin-based GUSU Paddlesports was born.

Not to be confused with YOLO Board, a locally owned brand of stand-up paddleboard, GUSU is a paddleboard retailer that carries paddles and boards by South Point Timpone, 7S, Walden, NSP and Kialoa.

Hill credits YOLO for how much paddleboarding has grown in the area.

“They’ve done a whole lot for the sport around here,” he said.

Hill is hoping that GUSU can help the sport catch on even more along the Emerald Coast.

He and his wife like to paddle through the harbor in the mornings together, and take the kids to Norriego Point when the sun is going down.

Hill said Destin harbor is the perfect place to paddleboard, because of the viewing points and flat water.

“The sunset is beautiful,” he said, adding that the experience is even more phenomenal under HarborWalk’s fireworks and flyovers.

The fitness aspect and the family togetherness are two reasons he is promoting the paddleboard. The other is a closer interaction with sea life.

“I saw a manta ray and sting ray the other day,” Hill said. “You can see more than you can sitting down in a kayak.”

The paddleboard is also one of his favorite ways to bond with his family.

“I am 50-years-old and I have worked on the beach every day for over 20 years,” he said. “Now that my kids — ages 5, 8, and 10 — are getting older, I’m trying not to do that.”