Evening C4C readers,

I love this spring season! Even though it is pretty cold in the morning, I like waking up with the birds singing and the sun rising. Last weekend was really warm and calm water and it sounded to me like the perfect set up to train… and to float a raft.

Like Mark started to explain, we needed an extension for our pretty rustic dock and we found the perfect piece of old reinforced plywood right on the shore about 750m away from home. After making sure it was floating by adding at least 6 big dried logs underneath it, I pushed off the shore, heading in to the middle of the river to catch the main current. What could actually go wrong here? I did wear rubber boots after all. The journey down those 750m did not exactly go as planned. First of all there was way less current than expected so despite my best paddling efforts (with my long 2 by 4 paddle), I reached the middle of the river half an hour after my departure. Realizing that all I could do was wait for the current to take me home, I sat down on my piece of wood paddle to enjoy the last rays of the setting sun. After a couple of meters well traveled, a lovely lady starts to follow me on the West shore. “Hey you, what are you doing?” she yelled. “I’m floating my dock extension home” I casually answered. “Ok, that’s nice but how about you come to shore and we can talk about it” she continued. Then she pulled a electronic device and started talking into it. Only at this very moment I realized she was a cop.

Ten minutes later around 5 more officers were on shore with her and half of the fire department including their cold water rescue experts joined the festivities. I also could see an inflatable boat and a police rescue motor craft getting ready to give me assistance. “I’m fine mam” I explained, “I’m just going to paddle to the shore right by my house”. She did not seem to understand when I showed her the piece of 2 by 4. Meanwhile, 2 more trucks had pulled on the shore, one about a kilometre down river and one by the falls where I started my descent. Let’s just say I was as confused as them as to now what was happening here. They were seeing a guy floating in the middle of the Rideau river standing on a piece of wood at water level, and on my side I was wondering what kind of situation I put myself into to gather more police forces than I’ve ever seen in one place at the same time.

As I was slowly approaching my final destination, Jamie, Mark, Tessa, Jenna were enjoying the show taking pictures. Luckily for me, Ian sat down in our play boat kayak and paddled over to try to explain to them the situation. As my explanations seemed only to get me into more trouble, he was able to convince them I was sober, lucid and somewhat skilled enough to steer my piece of dock towards our home.

Lot’s of commotion for a Sunday afternoon, but our house ended up to with a bigger dock and my name is now in the Ottawa Police department files.. I better keep it quiet for a while. The lesson to be learned here is always think of safety first, wear a life jacket and bring a whistle but firstly, wait until August to float your raft.

Thanks for reading,