With the relentless drought pounding the once mighty southeast into a dry, arid, dismal, desert of despair in September my good friend Jon Clark and I got to escape for a while back to the Dominican to teach a first aid and swift water rescue course and to do a little kayaking as well. September is a great time to be on the Island due to the abundance of water thanks to the Hurricane season. Although the primary focus of the trip was to teach courses we managed to sneak away either early in the morning or late in the afternoon to get our fix on the river.
It can't be all work though, we built in a few extra days to explore some new runs to continue to work on Project DR. Although the runs we did were not first descents one of the sections of river we paddled may not have seen kayakers since Tao and Sam Drevo were there filming Twitch 2000
. Thanks to the daily deluge of rain we had plenty of water for the run. The only down side to all this rain was some of the gorges were pretty remote and the constant threat of rain made for some uneasy moments on the river. Also running challenging water with just a team of two means you either get a picture or a rope, it's a tough decision.
The DR continues to deliver quality whitewater and great adventures. It's always a great time when paddling class V whitewater is the mellow part of your day, the shuttles and act of getting to the river are the things that keep you on the edge of your seat. We will be returning to the DR soon, I can't wait to see what we turn up next.
