RIOJOSIE became a wafter in the early 1990s. While working as an administrator for the Institute of Latin American Studies at UNC-CH, she began organizing groups of students and faculty for adventures from Chapel Hill to the Eno River to participate in wafting programs. In 1996 Riojosie left the area to work in community development in Venezuela, exploring tropical nature along the Orinoco River and pursuing her wild side. She returned to Durham in 2000 to join Riverdave as a wafting partner on the Eno.

Outside of wafting, Riojosie works as a community organizer, serving on Durham's Open Space and Trails Commission and on two local nonprofit boards - the Friends of West Point Park and the Schoolhouse of Wonder. She also volunteers for Duke Hospice.  She has a long time interest in yoga, recently expanded into Traditional Thai Massage.

RIVERDAVE was attending Durham High School in the sixties as the movement to protect the Eno River began to gather momentum.  When the parklands took shape in the seventies and eighties, he worked in southwest Asia as an orientalist (see http//:www.wafter.org/page13.html), exploring tropical nature in the Great Rift Valley and pursuing his wild side.  He then returned to his hometown where he taught in Duke's Asian & African Languages Program while he retrained as a local naturalist.

Riverdave formally launched "Wafting the Eno River" on Earth Day 1990, a local environmental education program offering our community a remedy for that rapidly spreading modern malaise known as nature deficit disorder. Riverdave's philosophy of wafting is based on a principle of energy flow and sympathy with nature elucidated in the life and writings of Henry David Thoreau, 19th century naturalist, transcendental philosopher and social critic.

Other interests of Riverdave include dream work, Amazonian purgative medicines, keeping a non-refrigerator kitchen and splitting wood to heat his and Rio Josie's log cabin by the Eno River. His favorite local retreats with Riojosie are in the mountains at Hot Springs, North Carolina and at the N.C. coast on Ocracoke Island. For the past three years our favorite place of exotic exploration has been Quebec's Island of Montreal in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

Riverdave is also a student of Traditional Thai Massage. For more info about this pursuit see http://www.wafter.org/page12.html

"I'm told that Riverdave is a master storyteller and that his tours are usually the highlight of visitors' trips to Durham..." from Travel North Carolina, Going Native in the Old North State - the John Blair Publishing Staff