I wonder if Emass was an inmate in a mental hospital with access to the internet. One of my favorite outrageous claims he made was paddling his board upside down while surfing some pretend reef with the fins up so he protected his new futures. The amount of lies he told on this forum are uncountable. What a total kook.
In fairness to Emass, I have actually seen locals at Domes (shallow reef) doing this (paddle their board upside down) at low tide till they get to the lineup. I scraped my fins paddling out the normal way but it was very minor and didn't do any damage to my fins or boart. I suppose I could of flipped my board over and do the same as the local guys, but it just seems silly to me. If it's that bad, probably should just walk out further and chance getting an urchin or something, which I have yet to get stuck with in 4 trips to PR, call me lucky.
I've never paddled with the board upside down, but I have paddled with the fins in front (ie board backwards). I've done it in PR and really any place where you paddle over super shallow reef. With the fins in front, it keeps them mostly out of the water. Then when you get to deeper water, you just turn it around to the normal way. This method saved countless fins for me, especially paddling out to the right side of Soup Bowl. Cuts your paddle out time in half and saves your fins!!!
I have hit my fins on the bottom of reef paddling out a few times good idea. But what is reef? Like coral?