In Quebec and defeated by The Reversing Falls

After a successful surf day in PEI (above), I chickened out in New Brunswick.

With no surf communities in Newfoundland, PEI and New Brunswick, I have been the surf source of our surf footage as Kathryn has filmed.
The Tidal River Waves in New Brunswick proved too much for my common sense; although I'm sure I could have surfed them, the water is full of whirl pools and boils and Jet Boat tours that could have proved hazardous (or fatal) to a lone surfer like myself. I'm sure Kathryn and the hundreds of tours wouldn't have appreciated me drowning in front of them.
The Reversing Falls are a bizarre phenomena. At low tide, the River flows in its natural direction, into the ocean. There are holes and rapids that I never would have thrown myself into. Then, hours later at high tide, the flow CHANGES DIRECTION. The water level rises 28feet, the ocean flows into the river and the rapids disappear, replaced by new ones in new places. Many of the reverse flow rapids, I think, would be surfable. Check the pics below of the exact same spot at Low and High Tides, respectively.


I'm convinced you can surf in NB, but it wasn't a good idea at the time for me. We also tried to get ocean swell on Grand Manan, NB, but the ocean wasn't co-operating. Oh well, we've been lucky up to now, especially getting surf footage on the red sand beach breaks in PEI. NB does have a surf spot, just no one to surf it yet...





After checking out Quebec City, we're now in Montreal. Because of changing water levels, a different wave is working from the last time we were here. In fact, this wave has just returned after disappearing for a few weeks. No one is 100% on why it disappeared, but for the hour we watched it yesterday, it got bigger and bigger. It's so strange how waves come and go in rivers, just like they do in the ocean.

We'll be surfing Montreal Style today!

Paul Boyd