Coast Guard Deployed After Inflatable Float Is Swept Out to Ocean, Friends Narrowly Escape 'Bad Situation'

“It was the scariest day of my life,” Hollie Spence, a newly minted 30-year-old, said of her birthday this year. “I don’t think I’ll ever do something like this again.”

It started with the simple desire to spend her birthday relaxing with friends and ended up placing her in national news.

Spence, her roommate Lepa Sega and her roommate’s brother Nation Sega set out on what would end up being the adventure of a lifetime on Saturday.

They brought their two dogs, some snacks and some nonalcoholic beverages (an important detail).

They took to the shallow waters of White Sands beach in Kodiak, Alaska, and launched a large flamingo raft. Once aboard, they enjoyed the day, which was beautiful if a bit windy.

It was that wind that proved to be disastrous.

“If we get too far out,” Spence later said about her previous raft floats, according to CNN, “we notice right away and pull it back.”

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The flamingo crew wasn’t entirely green: They’d done the same thing last year and enjoyed the outing. But this time, they got a little too far out and noticed a little too late that they were no longer in shallow water — but being pulled out into Monashka Bay.

After about an hour, the giant flamingo came to rest … against rocks. The spot was so treacherous that by the time help arrived in the form of the Alaska