Driftwood logs, Salt Spring Island, no map, no plan, a bad idea and a bet
The unlikely story of how Keegan got a girlfriend, into university, and won $100
To understand this story, you have to first understand my Dad. But that would take way too long, so just know he used to make us run home from school, we slept in the back of the truck on road trips, and I once won a $100 bet for being able to jump high enough to hit my head on the ceiling of our house —I surprised myself with that one.
This time around, in the summer of 2009, Dad bet $100 I couldn’t build a driftwood raft and paddle it around Salt Spring Island, on the west coast of Canada. Apparently his cousin had done it as a kid, though he omitted the detail of there possibly being an engine on that raft...
I played competitive soccer all summer and didn’t have a job, so this seemed like a great way to make some money. I roped a friend, Rhys Hardy, into the gambit, though I forgot to mention the $100.
We raided a family friends shed for supplies —finding oars, netting, floats, and a classic mouldy pop collar Mustang floater coat emblazoned with a ‘Federation of Ontario Naturalists’ badge.
Over a couple days we tied and bolted four huge logs together, overlaid it with a couple pieces of plywood, stuffed some styrofoam (picked up from the local hardware store in return fro free labour at a later date), fashioned some questionable oar locks and considered ourselves ready.
Within minutes of our launch from Welbury Bay beside the Long Harbour ferry terminal, which was picked up by the local newspaper, the oar locks failed and we had to come back in for a redesign. Then we left, again.
Half an hour later Rhys, with a rope in his teeth used to drag the raft along the shore, was hanging high up a loose cliff face completely stuck on the wet rock. A man we still don’t know tied a rope around his deck, lowered it to Rhys, and pulled him up. Saved, we continued pulling the raft along the shoreline. The two of us then caught an red pacific octopus (that still lives in the same spot today).
Beat, and less than a kilometre from our original launch spot we gorilla camped on the shore. The island is 25km end to end, so we were going to have to pick things up.
The next day we trialled cruising under sail, both sitting on a cooler and hanging onto a 5’7” windsurf sail attached to a universal joint bolted into the front left log of the raft —one of us would simultaneously man an oar to steer.
We cruised with two fishing rods out and our dilapidated inflatable dinghy (which had to be pumped up every few hours) trailing behind us we made better time, making it all the way to the Fernwood government dock. There we wrapped ourselves in a tarp on the dock, and slept until dawn.
Break of day found us wet, cold, and lying beside a dead fish on the dock. We set off as the sun rose, push poling the square raft over shallow ground. Then, on rounding Southey Point, the northernmost point on the island we took a break on the beach after nearly being torn apart by contrary tides and learned some terrible news.
An old man yelled down at us from his deck, waiving the newspaper in one hand. There we were, on the front page. A massive photo of us in our floater coats, hands aloft clasping a hammer between us, and a rusty knife in the other hand. The whole island was in on it.
We pushed off and put the sail back up.
As the warm summer sun fell, we found ourselves halfway between the Vesuvius ferry terminal and the base of Mt. Erskine, the wind had died with another 3-4km to row before reaching shore.
Eventually, exhausted, we fell asleep in the welcome comfort of a friends house on the waterfront, with the raft tied to shore out front. Rhys phoned his work and asked if he could get a few more days off —this was taking longer than anticipated.
The next day went badly. It rained, Rhys wrecked his toe on a rock, I pulled the raft along the shore for kilometres until we reach the government dock in Burgoyne Bay. We begged a ride home to assess the damage.
For some reason we went back to the raft the next day and continued. Rowing out from the dock around lunchtime Dad snapped a photo that would be run on the front page of the Times Colonist and in the Province Newspaper. Arthur Black picked it up and told told Canadian listeners on CBC Radio about Tom Sawyer and Huckfinn. Unknown to us, the nation was now in on it too.
We rounded Bold Bluff and aimed for a property’s dock that was boat access only. We knew the current in the narrows ahead of us would be too strong for us until after dinner time. We’d have to row them in the dark.
Seven hours later, after lunch with the woman who owned the dock we’d tied up to, we set off as the arbutus trees turned darker red and the sun set. The tide switched and we rowed through Sansum Narrows.
It was an eerie moonless night, eyes reflected back at us from headlamps as we paddled along beaches. We were also hopped up on chugged Monster 1-litre energy drinks and condensed “6-Hour Power!” bottles.
When the drinks wore off, we crashed hard. The velvety line of bioluminescent sparkles trailing behind us became surprise explosions of light as our paddles dug deep into the dark water —heads leaning against each other, sitting side by side, rowing and falling asleep.
We paddled until the mist before daybreak, tossed out an anchor, wrapped a garbage bag around us and a shared sleeping bag and slept on the raft until mid morning. Waves had lapped over Rhys all night. But we’d made it all the way around the southern end of the island to Isabella Point which was a huge distance under just the oars.
Our hands were so callused the knife was to dull to drain the blisters, we had to rotate screws in and out to pop them instead.
In the home stretch now, we crossed Fulford Harbour, were rescued by a friend in a boat who pulled us out of the way of the ferry —which blew it’s horn, announced us, and whose passengers shouted encouragement. The raft was now sinking badly, and the friend had also brought us extra styrofoam.
Thankful, we continued until Ruckle Park, a provincial campground. Tired and over it, we left the raft on the beach and went to sleep. Yelling woke us up in the morning, a ferry had gone by and the waves were breaking the raft apart on the rocks.
Somehow we got it off the beach and paddled on, taking a nap on the next beach before the current pushed us out to the Channel Islands —next stop USA. We had nothing left and couldn’t beat the current. We were stuck, unable to row back to shore.
On dying flip phones we called the friend who had saved us from the ferry. He came back out and gave us a tow past the current. At one point, we paddled beside him in the boat and he clocked our top rowing speed: 0.2 nautical miles an hour.
In the dark, we made it back to the swampy beach in town, completing the circumnavigation and then some. The only one there to greet us was the local drunk, and the seal that had followed us all day.
Dad picked us up.
It was over. We’d done it.
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For all the people who shared their stories with us along the way.