Commuting on the Anacostia?

My wife showed me an article about a guy in Cheverly who rows his way to work on the Anacostia. http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/30/rowing.commuter.ap/

Its a great idea to forget about the traffic that bothers us all, and use a more natural route that is surely better for your health and your mind. Living near the Northeast Branch trail, I see a lot of bikers in the morning who I assume are commuters. However, I've never heard of anybody else using the river as a way to get into the city.

This idea seems very appealing to me, because I love the outdoors and work fairly close to the river down in DC. It would be great if the Northeast Branch near my house was deep enough for rowing. Its disappointing that the river is too shallow at this point for any recreation. However, the Bladensburg Waterfront Park is a fairly easy bike or walk from Riverdale. The difficutly though would be the amount of time it would take to commit to this. An hour and a half like this guy describes certainly is a lot to commit, when my commute into DC can be done in 20 to 25 minutes on most days. Who knows...maybe one day I'll find a canoe or kayak and try it out. For now though the traditional commute will have to do.