Planning a day paddleboarding can now be easier with new app that covers 183 Spanish beaches

Planning a day of paddleboarding can now be easier thanks to a new app called PaddleGo. Created by Abel Rodriguez, a 35-year-old engineer and paddle surf enthusiast from Malaga, the app aims to simplify the process of determining whether the sea is suitable for a day of board surfing. Previously, Rodriguez found himself asking the same question before every session: "¿El mar esta pa’ tabla?" meaning "Is the sea suitable for a board?".

Weather apps provided wind speeds and swell periods, but did not offer a clear answer on whether conditions were ideal for paddling. Conditions could appear perfect at home but change within minutes upon arriving at the beach. This led Rodriguez to develop PaddleGo, an app that assesses wind, gusts, swell height and direction, and displays the results using a single color code. Green indicates the sea is good for paddling, amber suggests proceeding with caution, and red advises staying on dry land.

The app's data is sourced from Open-Meteo’s international forecasting models, which are then refined with years of Rodriguez's own on-water experience. Rodriguez tested the app on his wife's hometown of Pedregalejo before expanding its coverage to 183 beaches across mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canaries. The app allows users to save beaches as favorites and browse them by province.

PaddleGo also flags offshore wind, which Rodriguez refers to as the sport's "quiet menace." A land breeze may create flat waters, but paddlers can drift out further than planned, pushed by the wind, only to find themselves having to fight against it when they reach the beach. The app suggests the nearest beach with favorable conditions within a 30km radius, provides hourly forecasts to find a suitable window, streams live webcams for visual confirmation, and enables users to share their location and expected return time with a contact before heading out.

Rodriguez emphasizes that the app does not guarantee safety and that common sense is crucial. However, he hopes that the app will help prevent at least one rescue this summer by encouraging users to heed the warning signs and stay on dry land when conditions are not ideal.