Andrew Stones is accustomed to the proximity of Harbour Air float planes while he rows his skiff between his anchored houseboat and the Porpoise Bay government wharf in Sechelt.

It normally takes five to seven minutes to cover 200-metre distance. On April 17 at about 4:30 p.m., it took longer because of brisk winds and one of his paddles was broken. Instead of facing the dock as he normally would when rowing back to his houseboat, he paddled with his back turned.

“I could hear the plane coming behind me,” the 48-year-old ex-paparazzo recalled in an interview Tuesday. “I didn’t think much about it and let him get a lot closer than I should have. Finally, I realized, ‘S--t, he’s getting loud … and he can’t see me.’ It takes a second for it all to kick in to place.

“I realized he’s heading straight for me.”

Stones stood up in the 2.5-metre plastic skiff and waved the paddle at the float plane — to no avail. The plane’s propeller continued to bear down on him — like a scene from a James Bond film.

“Oh, man, he’s not stopping. This is not good. That’s it, you’re jumping.”

He went over the bow of the skiff just before the plane — a 1956 de Havilland Beaver — plowed into his skiff.

“I went deep and swallowed some water down there. I could hear thumping, rumblings and banging.

“Then I popped up behind it.”

Stones fancies himself a decent swimmer. He is on disability for a bad back and swims almost daily as part of his exercise regime. When he bobbed back to the surface, however, he struggled to stay afloat in the cold water with his full clothing, including boots. He called out to the wharf, but it was the float plane that turned around and got to him first. The pilot was there to help him and Stones ended up in his skiff wedged between the pontoons.

“I lay there and looked up and thought, ‘What the. …’”

He was treated by paramedics on shore, but did not require hospitalization.

“I didn’t feel anything but numbness,” he said. “I could only think, ‘F-----n’ hell, I got run over by a plane.’”

His skiff was scuffed, but otherwise survived the ordeal.

Stones wore no lifevest, which he credits with allowing him to stay under the water and possibly saving his life.

“I’m just glad I’m here.”

A Transport Canada report on the incident states the float plane was taxiing away from the wharf “when the pilot was distracted while assisting the front passenger with their seatbelt. Coincidentally, a person in a small row boat was paddling out from an adjacent government pier.”

Eric Scott, Harbour Air’s vice-president of flight operations and safety, said the company was “quite upset to hear that it happened,” but noted it is an extremely rare occurrence and that hitting wood debris is more typical.

“It’s the first time we’ve had a collision like that with a small boat.”

The pilot, who remains unnamed, has extensive experience flying on the B.C. coast and works on a “casual, part-time” basis for Harbour Air.