UPDATE: The event has just wrapped up. Check out the full 2012 Paddle Royal results.

Five days to go until the $20,000 Paddle Royal kicks off in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As we mentioned last week, Danny Ching, Candice Appleby and many of the world’s best Stand Up Paddlers will be chasing the prize money and bragging rights at what is set to be the second most lucrative SUP race of the entire season.

But forget the money, the promo pic above (click to zoom) shows off how awesome the location is…

This is the 5th Annual Paddle Royal SUP race, with last year’s main event drawing well over one hundred competitors. This year competitors will be travelling from far and wide.

Eric Terrien and Belar Diaz are making the trip from their winter training base in the Grand Canaries, Candice Appleby, Anthony Vela, Thomas Maximus, Kristin Thomas and a bunch of the SoCal crew are flying over, Chase Kosterlitz is migrating from Florida to Puerto Rico for a whole three months, while Paul & Angie Jackson have the longest trip of all: 38 hours from Australia to Puerto Rico… on four different flights… oh and with three giant board bags in tow. All in the name of SUP racing!

We’ll keep you posted with all the updates, pics and Paddle Royal SUP race results right here on SUPracer.com, so check back soon for more.