In general you should wear clothing that is comfortable and appropriate for the weather that you could swim in if you fell in!
In summer most people wear a light short sleeve shirt with shorts over a swimsuit. Some people use bike shorts or tights.
In winter you might want to wear a thermal T-shirt or top, shorts or thermal pants. If you paddle fast of course then you can get hot even in winter.
A wind shell (rain jacket) can be useful although we rarely find they are needed.
A wet suit is not good to paddle in as they tend to be too restrictive and you would get very hot if it's sunny. If you don't wear a shirt with sleeves you might also find you get some chafing from the PFD (life jacket).
Footwear - it's important to wear footwear that you can get wet and leave on during the paddle. Old sandshoes or wet suit booties are best otherwise old runners or sports sandals. Please DO NOT try to paddle barefoot as you never know what you could step on (oysters, glass, syringes).
Spare clothes. You will probably want to change at the end of the trip so you'll need spare clothes, shoes and a towel.
If you are joining the Before Work paddles in cold weather then I'd suggest wearing a polypro T-shirt under another shirt and you could even wear polypro long johns. I cut these off and turn them into shorts that I wear under my boardies but you can leave them long.
As an example Kathmandu Stores has these on sale (July 2017) with polypro tops 2 for $40.
Paddy Pallin had them for about $30 (top or bottom).
A lot of shops stock the Sherpa brand of polypro and you can find the nearest stockist from their website.
Boating shops such as Whitworths stock thermal skin clothing which has an outer water repellant layer and thermal fleece inside layer.
If you would like to shower after the paddle it's a short walk from our finishing point in Lavender Bay to North Sydney Olympic Pool where you can have a hot shower for $2.40 ($1.90 spectator entry + 0.50 for the shower).
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Updated Mon July 03, 2017 12:55 pm Sydney, Australia
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