An amputee who ‘dedicated his life to kayaking’ has been found dead in a river in Jerez.

Alberto, 61, had a prosthetic leg, but that never stopped him doing what he loved until he met his tragic end on Easter Monday.

The Spaniard had been staying at his apartment in the Cadiz municipality, and had been enjoying taking his own kayak out on the Guadalete River.

He was a regular at Puerto de Jerez, the kayaking company owned by Swedish Expat Lars Walker – who found fame earlier this year when he was filmed swimming back to his home during the floods.

Walker told the Spanish Eye: ‘I have known him for 35 years, it’s so sad, he was totally devoted to kayaking.

‘It’s hard to believe he could not swim the eight metres to reach the bank, but the autopsy will confirm what happened.

‘I thought I would find him laying on the bank waiting to be picked up.’

Alberto had gone kayaking on Monday morning and is usually picked up by his sister, 58, at a certain point.

But when he did not arrive after three hours, Walker explained, he decided to sound the alarm and authorities were contacted at around 1.15pm.

It was then that the 112 emergency service reported the disappearance of a canoeist in the La Corta area, near the riverbank, and a search was sparked.

Walker also set out in his own boat to retrace his friend’s route along the river.

In the end, it was a father and daughter who spotted the body of Alberto in the water.

Walker recalled: ‘Alberto was coming for one last training session before returning to Malaga, after a week’s vacation at his apartment in Jerez. He always came with his own kayak…

‘I’ve known him for 35 years, and he was a huge kayaking enthusiast, there were few like him.’

Walker said he found Alberto’s sister still waiting for him more than three hours after he set off at 9am.

‘So I got my boat ready and went to pick him up, and at the same time, I alerted 112 from my mobile phone,’ he recalled.

‘While I was out in my boat, I went upstream towards the Cartuja bridge, a 4.5 km stretch, and found the empty canoe stranded 500 metres from the Cartuja bridge, thinking I would find Alberto nearby on the bank waiting, after it had capsized.

‘I continued upstream and upon reaching the Cartuja bridge, I picked up the first two Policia Nacional officers who arrived.

‘They had walked through the mud to the bank because there is no normal or easy access to the river, and they almost didn’t reach the boat.

‘While we were searching together, a canoeist and her daughter (also a canoeist) saw the body on the bank, near where we had already passed when we found the canoe, and from there we returned four kilometres with the body to Puerto de Jerez.

‘The officers tried to resuscitate him the whole time, but when they arrived… there was no ambulance, no firefighters, no drones (we didn’t see any drones today; we only heard on the police radio that they were going to use one while we were already returning after finding the body).

‘I’m not trying to blame anyone, I just want the news to reflect what really happened: today it depended a lot on “the people from the river.”‘

Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.