This was the first thing I did when my stam was not high enough to swim. I have since reworked the bridge after a few areas looked weak color wise. I cleared a forest building it. there were closer shores but I wanted a long span.

It taught me a bunch in regards to building in the earlier hours. I used a ton of "scaffolding" to get around to hard to reach bridge areas as I built it over the deeper water. After building, just take the scaffolding down and swim around to get the wood.

I always have a step ladder in the water for those unfortunate drops.