When I think of summer, I think of dropping in to Garb, the great, black river crashing, surging, roaring all around me, until my hull lets go and gravity sends me skittering down its face, into a flat spin, a blunt, 250 cubic metres of rock hard water bouncing under me every second, until I throw down an edge and hurtle across the wave, torquing my body back when I hit the froth and driving my nose upstream and around, so I fly into the white spume at the top, ready to drop in again.
That is as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever got. I first surfed Garb when I was 11. I had never once stepped in a church and every time I have done so since – even the greatest cathedrals have seemed sad compared to the natural amphitheatre of stones that funnels all of the power of the Main Channel of the Ottawa River down the Lorne to create my favourite wave.
When I was a teenager, we would drive down to Beachburg on summer afternoons to surf Garb for hours, practicing tricks and hanging out with the other paddlers in the eddy. We’d drink beers on the rocks, eat cold pizza, and watch the paddling. Everyone was always happy to share the stoke.
The river humbled us. The water was so much stronger than any one of us and surfing it well had nothing to do with strength; it was about tuning into its flow. Every time I tried to force my way on the river, it sent me down to its blackest depths.
At first, all you can hear are your ears ringing and then the hydraulics gurgling far above you. You need to keep perfectly calm and slow your heart down to make your breath last. You have to trust that the gurgle will soon become a roar. Reach for the air with your paddle, roll, and figure out fast where the hell you are. If you’re lucky, you will still be able to make the eddy, so you don’t have to run the rapid and hike your boat back up through the bush. If you’re lucky. Too many friends of friends ran out breath.
But Garb is safe in the summer when the water is warm and the wave is at its best. I last surfed it when I was 17, when I stopped kayaking and let ambition get the best of me. I miss those summer afternoons, driving home with the windows down, my nose still plugged with river water, in awe of the wave, of all the stars in the sky, my friends, the birds and moose and wolves in the woods, completely worked.
Time has flown so fast. For so many summers, Garb has been washed out in my memory. I have been running the river, not turning around to surf. Writing this accelerated the wave for a moment though.
To determine whether standing waves can form, physicists calculate the Froude number, which balances flow speed and wave speed. If the flow speed and the wave speed are roughly equal, standing waves may form.
I just checked the gauge. Sure enough, Garb is just coming in, like it always does.