Meet Deano. He's a funloving Scotsman whose penchant for extreme sports - despite the huge challenge of being registered blind - has brought him international fame. Talk to him for 5 minutes and you'll find yourself being tempted to do things you never thought you'd do.

Bungee jumping? Wing walking? Zorb? No, no thanks, not for me. But listen to Deano describe his experiences, the exuberance in his voice, the charming Scottish accent, and you'll feel yourself being persuaded. He makes it all sound so fun.  

Where most people would struggle to even exist without their sight - his blindness is hereditary - Deano is living his life to the max, a heart-pounding inspiration for all people to get out and live a little!

 I caught up with Deano recently over a can of Rockstar and a Skype connection. I was in my office in Portland, Oregon, and Deano was in Scotland. (Ah, technology, what would we do without thee...)

I asked him about his recent trip down the River Tay, the longest river in Scotland. It's about 70km long (about 50miles), and he and his wife Rhona made the trip over the course of several days.

"There were times we had to stand up and walk because the river was only 2 inches deep" Deano explained. "It was very low water. We would walk until we found a place where it was 4 inches deep!"

But it wasn't all bumpy and rocky.  Their friend John, a boater who had been down the river many times, met up with them at various places along the way, because as he explained, "The waves will be bigger with lower water."

"Thistlebrigg had waves about 5 feet high, it was very fun for us rookies" Deano told me.

Rookie, though, is not exactly the term I would use to describe his extreme sports career. One glance at the sidebar of his website, Extreme Dreams, and your eyes will bug out - how can one guy do so many extreme sports in a lifetime, let alone a decade?

"We're not drinkers or smokers" Deano told me. "We like to get outdoors and be crazy, I am always looking for the next adrenaline buzz, that's what we enjoy."

And what about Rhona? I was impressed by the fact that Deano's wife undertook the Tay expedition with him, considering it was her first time on a hydrospeed (Deano did the Kaituna by himself with guides). And it must take some kind of special woman to traipse around the world doing extreme sports!

"We met on a blind date and it was raining," Deano recalled. "We were sloshing around in the mud and realized that we both liked to do the same things, we both liked to get outdoors and be crazy. She was a surfer and into cycling, so it just worked out."

Many of their extreme experiences took place on the trip around the world the two of them took early in their relationship, and it was on that trip where Deano saw a hydrospeed for the first time.

"We were in Pokhara Nepal by the lake and a Frenchman had one, he told us we could take them down to the river and play on them." Deano laughed. "We thought he was crazy! You want us to just take them out on the river by ourselves? We told him no."

But just a short time later, Deano and Rhona were on the North Island of New Zealand and despite it being the dead of winter, Deano convinced some guides to take him sledging (what they call riverboarding on the North Island of NZ). He was guided by 2 experienced river guides and one trainee.

Now, Deano is not completely blind - he can make out shapes but it is all very blurry (he's got an image on his website which recreates the small amount of vision he does have, and what things look like to him - click here to read about it and view the image ). But on this trip, he relied on his senses.

Deano explained: "I was the only customer that day, it being the middle of winter. The guides told me 'just do as we say' and we kind of went from eddy to eddy all the way down that way."

But it wasn't all easy. He told me that his 2 scariest moments ever were bungee jumping out of a helicopter ("the bungee was heavier than me, I kept thinking I was going to get pulled out of the helicopter before we got high enough, and hit the ground!"), and riverboarding the waterfalls on the Kaituna in New Zealand.

"We got to the first big waterfall (Okeere Falls, where Docta P and I got the beatdown of our lives in 2006) and the guides told me, 'If you go here you'll be ok, if you go over there you could die. Don't go over there!' That was a scary moment for me. I really thought about it, and I decided that if I didn't do this then I wasn't going to do any more extreme sports, that would be it."  

 Deano continued. "They put a guide on the bank near where I had to go right, if you go left you into the trees and that's a bad place to go. They asked me if I could see him and I said no."

He went for it though, kicking so hard that "my legs were kicking in midair!" So did you hit the right line?

"I came up and all I could hear them saying was 'You've done it! You've done it!' and I was thinking, 'I've done what? I've done it like I've gone in the bad place or I've done it like I went the right way?'"

Luckily, Deano had hit the correct line, and the rest of the trip went well. It went so well that Deano and Rhona decided to give the Tay a go this summer, and he's looking to carry hydrospeeds in his online shop, which he has been building in recent years along with his website.

"We had a lot of knockbacks" he said. "When I would call and tell them my situation, that I was registered blind and wanted to do it, most of them said no. So the site was a way to say thank you to the ones who said yes."

And it has now grown into a full time job.

"The shop is really a full time job, I work 15, 16 hours a day, it keeps me very busy" Deano said. 

Not only has his passion become a business for Dean, but it's garnered him a good deal of publicity too, from the plethora of newspaper articles to magazine stories to national television. 

Despite it all, though, Deano is still looking for his next adrenaline fix.

"We try to plan our vacations around places where they have exciting things to do" he told me. "We're looking at going to Norway next, packing up the dog in the Land Rover and taking the ferry across."

He's so cheery and enthusiastic about life that it's easy to forget he accomplishes all these crazy feats without the use of sight. He's an inspiration to adrenaline junkies everywhere, and a great reminder that no matter what hand you're dealt in life, make the most of it!