Two EPIC weeks surfing one of my favorites… BUSEATER!

So it all started with a phone call…. “Nick, dude, get up here now, Bussy is in and it is 80 degrees outside!”

This call came from my best friend Joel Kowalski up in Beachburg. He lives on the Ottawa River and got me started in kayaking 10 years ago. Now you have to understand Joel usually calls me and tells me I should be up on the Ottawa for some spring time surfing. Though this call usually comes in May not March, and it is usually never followed with 80 degree weather.

The second key part of this was that it just so happened to be with this early spring melt I had no conflicting schedule. So I packed up the RV, my cold weather gear and my Rockstar and hit the road.

I made it to Ottawa late Sunday night, just in time to pick Dane up from the airport (he flew in from the Jersey Paddler show), we then spent the night at Joel’s apartment in Ottawa City. I woke up the next morning to the coldest day on my entire winter. Now you might think I sounds ridiculous being I was in Canada and it is cold there, but it had just been a week on 80 degree weather and now it was 4 or 5 degrees (much, much colder). Dane and I instantly started to question why we had left the sunny warm south to come to a cold and miserable north. We reminded ourselves it was because of the epic waves that were waiting for us.

After we stopped by the Ottawa Paddle Shack to pick up some warmer skull caps for the insanely cold water, we left the city and headed from my home town, good ol’ Beachburg.

Dane and I were staying at my parents house and had plenty of time on the water. It seemed as though most of the days we were maybe the only people on the water, and then other days the crowds would form. We got great water levels, starting with high water surfing Short Bus, then the level dropped down and Big Bus came in for 3 days, then it took another 3 days for Mini Bus to come in, which we surfed for the following 4 days.

Within the 11 days on the water we spent 9 of them surfing, and 41 hours spent actually surfing the wave. Needless to say we were exhausted.

Check out some photos from the trip and stay tuned for the next JKTV for a sweet edit of the trip.

Nick Troutman

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