Ottawa River beatdown -Zac Cole

Coming from toronto we dont have any white water 40 minutes north of my cottage there's the gull river a glorified creek that's man made and is a 5 minute ride top to bottom with little playspots and many shallow rapids
First day on the ottawa after paddling 10-15 minutes I hit the lorne a rapid that blew me away substantially bigger then anything I've ever seen and alone felt like a beat down after hitting garb I quickly went over and felt disoriented as my kayaking experience consists of hours of flat water perfecting my role I had my paddle in an akward positon and was confused what to do and debated swimming but I pulled my self together and got my role the next day I swam garb and got sucked under for 10 seconds with matheau this was my next beat down the first time i was ever held under water last night I realized I must be in for a lot on to infamous beat down Thursday first part of the day was swimming McCoy's and due to a bad line I swam left side Phils again another beat down I made it down phils another time in my Kayak and kept side surfing until the third time where I caught Phils shot forward and flipped and started face surfing after about 5 seconds I didn't know what was gonna happen and pulled my skirt and that marked my first time swimming on ottawa I learned firstly swimming isn't bad but secondly left side phils wouldnt have held me for much longer so I couldve maybe waited it out.  Anyways it was a fun first official beatdown ever and after I ran the lorne for the first time without needing to role a rapid I almost swam at on monday this big water had a major change on other rapids.