“It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened.”
— Huckleberry Finn
August 15, 2001 — “We are sailing, Dan!”
Eric Johnson was shouting into his cell phone. People tend to do that — even if the person on the other end of the line can hear them just fine. But Johnson’s frenzy was forgivable.
He and fellow Gainesville teenagers Cliff Humphrey and Patrick Moore were on a homemade raft, floating down Lake Lanier. And they were floating fast.
“We’re going to reach Browns Bridge tonight!” Johnson continued.
“We’re flying, Dan!” Humphrey screamed in the background. “We’re flying!”
I must admit, I was surprised. When I left the raft just two days earlier, it was far from flying. In fact, it wasn’t even moving. The boys had run it ashore just below Thompson Bridge.
They were waiting for the wind to change, and beginning to doubt whether they would ever make it down to Buford Dam like they had planned. It was still 20-something miles away.
But the delays didn’t appear to dampen the spirits of this trio of dreamers. To be honest, I’m not sure if anything could. Besides, they had already traveled farther on this voyage than all their previous rafting trips combined.
“It seems like around every bend, the wind changes,” Humphrey said at the time. “Regardless, we’re having a blast. Before, we always said we had half a day to go, because we had to have half a day to get back. Now, we don’t have to worry about that. We can go as far as we want. That is real freedom to me.”
That was back on Monday, July 30, or Day 2. On Wednesday, Day 4 — when the rafters were “flying” — talk of reaching Buford Dam no longer began with an “if.” It was a matter of “when.”
Amazing what a little wind and a lot of will power can do for you.
“At first, it didn’t look like we were going to make it at all,” Humphrey said to me over the phone. “But it’s definitely looking a lot better now.”
By Wednesday, the rafters had a whole legion of supporters cheering them on. Their fanbase had grown considerably over the previous 48 hours. People were drawn to their story — which was being told everywhere.
The Associated Press picked up the original piece that ran in The Times, and shipped it out across the country. That led to a large spread on the front of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Metro section and a short feature on the 5 o’clock news broadcast of WXIA-11, Atlanta’s NBC affiliate.
Complete strangers approached the raft. They took photos and rolled videotape. They offered the boys fishing lures, ice, bananas, M&Ms. “People are really nice,” said Humphrey, “when you have a raft.”
One retired couple was so inspired by the rafters’ story that they drove all over Lake Lanier — across every bridge they could find — just to get a glimpse of the raft. They eventually met up with the boys near Lake Lanier Islands and gave them free passes to the LLI Beach & Waterpark.
The soon-to-be high school seniors were surprised by all the attention. Their parents weren’t.
“High school kids get a bad rap these days,” Annette Humphrey, Cliff’s mother, said. “I think it was kind of unusual, and kind of refreshing, to see three boys work from scratch — hard work, sweat work — on something that was just a boyhood dream.”
And that dream was about to become a reality.
I grew to look forward to my daily calls from the rafters that week. They would always begin with an excited, “Hey, it’s the rafters!”
I got one such call early Thursday morning. I was headed to the Atlanta airport for a weekend trip to Chicago. The rafters were headed past Aqualand Marina, on the southern portion of Lake Lanier.
“There are white caps on the water!” Moore yelled.
“We’re gonna make it!” Cliff Humphrey proclaimed. “We’re gonna make it! Maybe today!”
They had sailed through most of the night — by light of the full moon. The wind was just too good. Sleep could wait.
When the rafters did sleep, they did so in hammocks hung between the mast and the posts that supported the boat’s upper deck. I suggested it might be more comfortable if they instead just laid their sleeping bags out on the deck.
“Maybe,” Humphrey replied. “But hammocks are a lot cooler.”
Save for some shuteye, and perhaps a shower, the rafters weren’t left wanting for much of anything while out on the water. The had a nice stockpile of food, stored in strongholds built into the lower deck. Their ice didn’t last long, however.
“Our meals, they were always interesting,” said Johnson, particularly fond of their raspberry jelly tacos. “No matter what we had, whether it was rancid meat or tuna fish with EZ Cheese on it, it was always very, very filling.”
Whatever the rafters happened to forget — like, say, toothpaste — friends were more than happy to bring to them on their Jet Skis. This was a team effort, to be sure.
The boys had the full support of family and friends from the moment they hatched their harebrained plan last fall.
“I’ve learned to take Cliff seriously,” Mrs. Humphrey said. “He’s not afraid of a challenge.”
Marcia Moore, Patrick’s mother, added, “They are very creative boys. They are always kind of thinking outside of the box. I didn’t have any doubts.”
By Thursday evening, the boys had Buford Dam in their sights. They considered completing their journey that evening, but instead decided to savor their success.
They waited until after sunrise, and then made their final approach to Buford Dam Park. Parents and pals — and, of course, some members of the local media — were waiting there to greet them.
“It was really bittersweet,” Patrick Moore said. “I was glad that it was over, in a way. But I miss it. And I missed it even that day. I miss sleeping on my hammock at night and looking at the moon and sailing at nighttime. I miss all that.”
“It took a couple days to recuperate,” Johnson said. “For the first while, I was in the shower rocking back and forth, trying to get my balance.”
Humphrey telephoned me from the finish. “I wish you could have seen it, Dan,” he said.
When I got his call, I was on train somewhere in Chicago. Things seemed so cramped up and smothery there.
And a part of me wished I was back on that raft — you feel mighty free and easy on a raft, you know — floating somewhere, anywhere on Lake Lanier.