“There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” While this quote comes from the Water Rat in Kenneth Graham’s children’s book, “The Wind in the Willows,” you would be hard-pressed to find a group that agreed with the sentiment more than the participants of this year’s Paddle Georgia event, who spent last week rowing, paddling and drifting down the Ogeechee River in a motley caravan of kayaks and canoes. Last Saturday, June 20, about 400 people set off from a boat ramp in Rocky Ford to begin a seven-day sojourn down the Ogeechee, the region’s 95-mile stretch of blackwater running through 22 counties and a river basin covering a 5,500-square-mile area.