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Sam Drevo is a professional kayaker from Oregon. He and a group of extreme paddlers had just done the first ever run of a ten mile section of the Rio Jimenoa in the Dominican Republic. It was what he calls ‘real gnarly’ – rapids and waterfalls, lateral waves, a maze of boulders with massive ‘keeper’ holes behind them, big drops into troughs, eddy lines racing up, the sides of the canyon flashing by.

Finally, they reached a steep, deep narrow canyon where the water was serene. From behind, Drevo could hear the roaring of the river, like a loud pulse, but the canyon was quiet and still. He just floated, staring up at the rock walls, intensely aware of the millions of years and the immense powers it had taken to carve out this place. Suddenly a feeling overwhelmed him – a mixture of euphoria and profound peace.

‘It was like I reached a place where clarity and intuition and effort and focus all came together to bring me to a higher level of consciousness’ he says ‘A level where I was no longer me; I was part of the river. It was an amazing experience’.