Back when I was in high school, a friend and I got dropped off on the far said of a large lake, our intent was to build a bamboo raft and paddle across. We built the raft based on our understanding of Gilligans Island raft techiques. There was a bamboo stand by the lake shore through an orange grove. we lashed the bamboo with cord we brought, and then put it in the water. It barely held itself up, and in no way would have held us. We built a frame of bamboo under the raft, like a fence around the edges, and then found a trash pile full of old plastic jugs, and stuffed them into the corral we had made under the raft. It actually worked and we very SLOWLY paddled across the lake. Half way across a nest of carpenter ants came pourring out of one of the bamboo logs, so into the water I dove. we got them off by splashing them, then continued our trip. Never made it to the boat ramp, instead pulled up on shore a half mile away from it. the raft was just too hard to paddle and move with all the drag under it, but at least it did work well enough to get us back to our side of the lake. Many lessons learned that day.