Yeah,
I gotta support Chuck on this one. It's fun to do 20 or 30 landings over two nice days, dock twice with help, and say that you got a float rating, but...
If you're actually going float flying, you're intending to land in a place that was not built with a surface (underwater hazards?) or infrastructure intended to accomodate an airplane. Does the lake have a stated runway length? HOw do you know if you have enought room? You're going to have to figure a lot of things out for yourself, and often very quickly, while you're sailing up to them. If you have a problem, you're not at an airport, what's your plan to get help? I've flown a lot of badly needed items into some remote places, because the pilot did not have a plan. Having the money to fly off and onto the water is only the beginning, getting good instruction is next, but building up the necessary experience over the long term is the most important. Only good, and long term mentoring, from much more experienced pilots will get you through safely.
Fortunately, insurance companies are figuring this out, and insist on effective insruction, and refresher flying. The rates tell the story. Add amphibs to the mix, and watch the insurance rates go up. What is the position of the wheels compared to where you are about to land? Swimming in an upsidedown floatplane is amazingly disorienting. And by the way, floatplanes and flying boats are very different from each other on the water, and require specialized "differences" training.
Don't get me wrong, go and get the rating, it's a blast, but until you have a hundred hours on floats, have succeded in docking in a high wind, and touched down on a surface so smooth that you truly could not tell if you were one foot or one hundred feet up, the instant before you touched, you should not be float flying without mentoring.
You've just dropped off a passenger in a little lake, and the takeoff path ahead of you is an "S" bend, so where to are going to lift off the water is around a corner from where you begin your takeoff. As you turn to your takeoff heading, you drag the length of the float along an unseen submerged rock. Are you going to stop and have a look, and sink it there, or try to take off on a potentially Titanic damaged float?
You'e flying an amphibian, and one main wheel gets stuck up, while the other gets stuck down, and you're now out of hyraulic fluid to move either. Where are you going to land?
There are lots of things to think about, and the fresh instructor may be just the beginning of what you will need to make you safe.
I suggest that you look for flight training for floats in British Columbia or Ontario. The state of Maine also has some schools. At least the junior instructors with whom you might be paired, are probably themselves being mentored by old timers.
Best of luck, and wear your lifejacket!
Pilot DAR