What to Do When a Headwind Stops Your Progress on a Paddleboard

There's a specific feeling to paddling as hard as you can and staying exactly where you are. It happened to my best friend Michael Whalen and me at the mouth of Emerald Bay on the first day of our five-day paddleboard circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe, a headwind strong enough that every stroke felt like it was being cancelled out before it could move us forward. Here's what we actually did about it, and what I'd tell anyone facing the same wall of wind.

Recognizing When a Headwind Has Actually Stopped You

There's a difference between a headwind that's slowing you down and one that's stopped your progress entirely. The first is frustrating but manageable, still making forward gains even if they're smaller than usual. The second is a different situation, where you're expending real effort and staying in place or losing ground. At the mouth of Emerald Bay, we crossed that line clearly enough that continuing to force it made no sense.

What We Did: Pull Off and Wait

We pulled our boards to the side, found a spot on the rocks to rest, and waited roughly twenty minutes for conditions to ease. That decision cost us time but conserved energy we needed for the rest of the day. Fighting a headwind that's genuinely stopped your progress burns energy without producing results, and that energy is worth more later in the day than it is spent uselessly against wind that isn't going to give an inch.

How to Tell If Waiting Will Actually Help

Not every headwind eases within a reasonable window. Ours did, dropping enough after twenty minutes that continuing became realistic again. If you're facing a similar situation, look at the broader pattern rather than just the moment you're in. Is the wind gusting and settling, or building steadily. A gusting, settling pattern suggests waiting is worth it. A steadily building pattern suggests the wind may not ease for hours, and a different plan, like altering your route or calling it for the day, might make more sense.

When Pushing Through Actually Makes Sense

There are situations where waiting isn't practical, whether because there's no safe place to pull off or because a schedule genuinely requires forward progress. In those cases, angling slightly off a direct headwind course, even if it adds distance, can sometimes make more actual progress than paddling straight into it. A completely direct headwind is often the hardest angle to make any gains against, and a slight diagonal approach can open up options a straight-on push doesn't.

What a Stalled Crossing Does to Your Schedule

Our twenty-minute wait didn't wreck our day, but it was a reminder that any single stretch of a route can eat into your buffer time without warning. If you're planning tight daily mileage with no room for delays like this, a single stalled headwind can cascade into problems for the rest of your schedule. Build slack into your planning specifically for moments like this, not just for the trip as a whole.

What This Taught Us About Patience on the Water

Neither of us are naturally patient people, and waiting out that headwind on day one set a tone for the rest of the trip that served us well later, particularly during a longer wind delay at Cave Rock on day four. Learning to sit with a stalled situation rather than force it, early in a multi-day trip, makes the same decision easier and less frustrating the next time it comes up.

How This Compares to the Wind Delay We Hit Later

The headwind at Emerald Bay wasn't the only wind-related stop of the trip. On day four, wind forced us into Cave Rock Marina for a full hour, a longer and more uncertain delay than the twenty minutes we'd waited on day one. The difference was that by day four, we'd already been through this decision once before, and waiting felt like a familiar, manageable choice rather than a frustrating interruption. Facing the same kind of decision more than once across a multi-day trip builds a kind of calm that's hard to manufacture any other way.

If you're planning a route with multiple potential wind-exposed crossings, expect to face this same decision more than once, and treat each instance as practice for the next one rather than an isolated problem to solve from scratch every time.

What Gear Helps You Wait Out a Headwind Comfortably

Waiting on the water, or pulled up on rocks with your board, is more comfortable with a few specific items within easy reach. A layer to throw on if the wind carries a chill, since standing around in wet gear during a delay cools you down faster than actively paddling does. Snacks you can eat without unpacking your full food bag. And patience, which isn't gear exactly, but matters as much as anything you actually carry. A dry bag with a few of these comfort items packed separately from your main gear means you're not unpacking your whole board just to wait out fifteen or twenty minutes of wind.

How to Communicate With a Paddling Partner in These Moments

Michael and I made every wind-related decision together, but that only worked because we'd agreed early on that either of us could call for a pause without it being treated as excessive caution. Paddling partners sometimes fall into a dynamic where one person feels pressure to push through discomfort to avoid seeming weak, and that dynamic gets dangerous fast on open water. Before your own trip, have an explicit conversation about how you'll communicate discomfort or concern mid-crossing, and agree that calling for a stop is always the right call to respect, not something to push back against in the moment.

On the water itself, simple verbal check-ins work better than assuming your partner is fine because they haven't said otherwise. We got into a habit of calling out how we were each feeling every fifteen or twenty minutes during any stretch that felt uncertain, which caught problems early rather than after they'd already become serious, and it cost us almost nothing in terms of time or effort to maintain that habit across the full trip.

Before You Close This Tab

How would you tell the difference between a headwind slowing you down and one that's genuinely stopped your progress?

What's your own threshold for waiting versus pushing through difficult wind conditions?

Do you have a safe pull-off plan built into your route in case you hit a headwind with nowhere obvious to wait?

How much schedule buffer have you built in for a stalled crossing like this one?

Dalton Johnson is a photographer, filmmaker, and brand storyteller based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the past decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Ford Bronco across all seven continents. He is the creator of the Follow The Journey distribution framework, which has produced over one million organic views per 30-day cycle without paid media. His work includes two published books, an award-winning documentary that aired on PBS, and more than fifty commercial spots directed. He runs Stories by Dalton on Substack, read by more than 34,000 subscribers.