Beatdown Thursday’s (2019)- Max Feild

Beatdown Thursday on the Ottawa River is always an awesome experience no matter what it has in store. Usually it’s always a few surfs in Phil’s hole, but the extreme high water in the river gave us a different experience for our first week. The hole was washed out to the point that it was just a nice, fluffy wave. Instead, we were treated to a rare summer appearance of the Minibus wave, where everyone had a blast surfing a mountain of water and attempting some tricks. This week, the water levels came back down and most everything was back to how I remembered it from last summer. While surfing Minibus is extremely fun and a once in a lifetime opportunity, there’s nothing quite like a beatdown Thursday at Phil’s. Phil’s is retentive for a boat and fairly violent, so surfing it is a wild ride. The real beauty of Phil’s is that it is so safe. It’s deep water so the risk of hitting your boat or body on the river floor is minimal, and it is also very quick to flush a swimmer. In the event that you find yourself out of breath, all you have to is get out of your boat and you’ll be back on the surface in seconds. This is such an amazing feature to test your limits on and push what you think you’re capable of. It teaches us how to deal with uncomfortable situations in a river for when we really need the experience. While I love Minibus and I couldn’t have been more excited to spend my first beatdown Thursday there, there’s something special about Phil’s and I’ve never been more pumped up then after a morning spent surfing that hole.