Floating Down River On Blow-up Toys

by Parker Heuser

After several weeks of inactivity, the guys and I decided it was time to get outside and do something that we would all enjoy. Just like we used to do. Get out in nature, bring some camera gear, and have a great time making videos. Today's activity was:

Floating down the Vedder River in Chilliwack!

Now we didn't have all the necessary equipment to do this, so we had to compile a bit of a list.

What we have:

  • Video Camera (x2)
  • GoPro (x2)
  • Drones (1 Mavic Pro, 1 Phantom 4)
  • Dry bags for equipment
  • Massive Bluetooth speaker (water-resistant)
  • Vehicles for transport (beginning AND end point)

What we need:

  • Floaties (7 or 8)
  • Water bottles
  • Food and/or snacks
  • Rope
  • A couple more people

When it comes to picking up items for a shoot day, you can bet your buns we're going to end up at Walmart. And sure enough... we did. We picked up some inner tubes, a couple dingies, a swan, and an inflatable poop emoji. We also invited our friends Kyle and Jacob to join us for the day. 

We dropped off the truck at the end point of the river and then drove up to the beginning point. Got a couple drone shots, spent a lot of time blowing up our inflatables, then took everything down to the river's edge. We tied (almost) all the floaties together with our rope, so we don't lose each other mid-float, and tossed everything into the water. 

Funny enough, the first stretch of the river was the roughest. There was the odd log sticking out from the ground in various places, a couple sharp rocks and branches along the side, and some veeerrry shallow points. Not to mention some of the floaties were a bit more work to stay balanced on. Our code word for river obstructions was "iceberg". I'm not even sure why we had a code word for it, nobody seemed to listen when it was called.

Halfway down-river, we pulled over under a train bridge. There was a nice beach to dock at, we got out our masks and snorkels, and there was even a rope swing suspended from the bridge. We played around a bit, did some bridge jumps, then continued on our way downriver.

The train bridge was approximately the halfway point, and after we started floating again, there was much less activity and excitement. It was pretty much just a calm float until the end. 

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