Report from the 2013 Raft Race

College Park "Friends" Raft

Link to more photos on the way. That's me in green; Bill is in red; Brent Whitfield is in Yellow and Michael Arevalo is in blue - we were the College Park Centennial Raft Race team (Photo taken by Tom Johnson). The neighborhood drew the decade of the Nineties. So, we choose an iconic sitcom "Friends" as the theme. Mary Lindsey did a great organizing everything from the shirts, hats, paddles, chairs, banner and the raft itself.

After assembling on J Street, participants with rafts and vehicles marched down Lake Avenue toward Bryant Park, everyone got their rafts in the water. Suddenly, people were headed out into the Lake Worth Lagoon and we thought the race had officially started. So we worked against a headwind to make it to the buoy in the middle of the Lagoon, trailing one other contender. We turned around and headed back in, sure for a solid second place finish. We get to the throngs at the boat ramp, only to be told that was a "warm up!" We were ready to put the raft back in the truck, but it was only 4 minutes after 11 and the "official" race was yet to be run. We were sort of tuckered out. But, like troopers, we got back on the raft, changed sides to work a different set of muscles, and we were off with the sound of the horn.

We think the raft took on a little more water during the second run. It was harder to navigate, but we were still being respectable in our position with other rafts. The city boat had a hose that squirted that tasty grunge water all over other rafters. Anyway, we were one of the few to complete the entire course by going around the buoy. We didn't win, not sure who did - maybe South Palm Park? But at least we can say we're legit. And we looked colorful too.

Nice to see such a crowd lined up along the seawall. Like I said, more pics to follow.

Oh, and during the parade Mary Lindsey had this blaring from her truck carrying the raft.