Hey outists, I need you to help me design a raft for use on a big, slow-moving river. I have some limitations.
Use of logs is out of the question. I'm doing this in a mangrove swamp, and I don't want to damage trees more than absolutely necessary. Sticks only. This means I'll need something besides wood for buoyancy. I need to make pontoons. There are several ideas I've had for this:
-I've seen pictures of boats made out of soda bottles. I probably couldn't lay my hands on that many soda bottles, but I could buy a dozen gallon jugs and duct tape them together. I wonder how many I'd need to keep me afloat?
-half a dozen 5-gallon buckets, with lids duct-taped on, would be perfect. Don't think I'll be able to source these from anywhere, though.
-Inflated black plastic bags (the ultra heavy duty contractor bags). I hate entrusting my life to anything inflatable, but I'd use maybe 8 or 10 of these, and if I hit a snag only one or two would pop. I could even cover them entirely with duct tape.
The bag solution is by far the easiest. But how do I incorporate inflated bags into a raft? I can't really picture it.

I was thinking about this today while listening to a John Buchan audiobook and one phrase jumped out at me: "To go on one's knees before Providence and ask for trouble"