This post is the beginning of a three-part series dedicated to my summer of 2016 spent with Archelon, The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, in Lakonikos Bay. These 9 weeks were massively formative for me and I know I cannot do them justice in around 1000 words, instead, this post will talk about the place and the people I met. The second part will detail the facts and biology of turtles and turtle conservation and the final one will be my lasting impression that this summer had.
Around about Christmas of 2015, I felt that I needed to escape, not something out of the ordinary for me. However this time I didn’t just want to do it for myself. Instead, I wanted to do it for something or someone else. Originally I began to look at volunteering in South Africa with women’s rights but my mum told me it was too far and if something happened it was hard to get back, not to mention it was a big risk for me to travel so far and possibly not enjoy my time that I'd given them.
I struck lucky when I began my journey with Archelon; it took me so far, it changed me so much. I arrived thinking I knew who I was, what I wanted and where I was going in life. I left feeling completely renewed after 9 weeks.
Arriving in Gytheio on a sleepy Friday afternoon in late May gave me a strange feeling, here I was not known, but neither was I a stranger. Everyone wanted to know me, everyone wanted to help, people smiled as I passed them and some uttered ‘kalispera’. The restaurants, cafe’s, shops and roads were empty aside from a few locals as the lady from the bus station (because I missed my bus) drove me through town to the beachfront campsite that was to be my home for the next 9 weeks.
The rocky, almost mountainous, green hills that hugged the shoreline surrounded the town in a small cove. Over the largest of all hills was my new home Camping Meltemi. A campsite and an olive grove in one that was brimming with wildlife, as if our camp attracted it. Noisy Cicadas were incessant but mostly relaxing, Eurasian Jays fluttered around, playing and scavenging, Balkan Lizards clung to sun-kissed surfaces and Barn Swallows danced around elegantly in the sky. The campsite teamed with life, the months to come would bring many tourists, mainly Greek although some German setting up under the canopy of the olive leaves. Our camp was to fill up and become a busy centre for Archelon’s project and a place to make a home for all of us volunteers alike.
The town was surrounded by 4 beaches, in close proximity all with their own characteristics and quirks.
Mavrovouni is a touristic beach, the sand is a soft white but pebbly in places, tortoises are found in the scrub and for those biologists out there, there is a strong sign of succession, in the places where the sand is not bordered by concrete and buildings. When you stand to face the sea, on this 7km stretch of sand, the sun rises to your left over a rocky outcrop from shore and the sets to your right over large and distant ‘mountains’, made up of red rock. If you’re lucky enough, on certain mornings you can stand outside the camping, look to your left to see the sun peeping over the rocks and look to your right to see the moon lowering simultaneously as if you were stood in a planetarium.
Vathi is a beach in a sheltered bay, it’s kind of the hippy beach of the area. Often you will see people in the nude on the stretch of beach that does not have many tavernas and hotels. The sand on this beach is fine and seemingly dust like and swimming here is incredible, the water is calm and warm, especially when you take a plunge in the icy, freshwater, river that runs into the sea.
Selinitsa was a beach I loved and grew to hate at the same time, one end it is overshadowed by ‘the ghost hotel’ an overbearing and ambitious concrete structure built into the cliff side that was once a luxury resort and is now left in ruin. The beach itself is rocky with a moderate amount of hotels and tavernas, although here we seemed to have the most conservation issues. Swimming here in the morning is something many locals do as its a short walk from the centre of town, we were often greeted by floating heads, in the sea, with brightly coloured swim caps shouting ‘KALIMERA!’ and beaming smiles at us as if we were long-lost friends to which we would wave and carry on. This beach is beautiful but often the most neglected and under appreciated. It showed me many awe inspiring sunrises and was pivotal in building my confidence and self-belief while I volunteered.
Finally, everyone's favourite beach, Valtaki. This beach is marked by a great, rusting and dilapidated shipwreck. The shipwreck is really the only thing along this beach that is unnatural, the sand is completely bordered by greenery and on the other side, the sea is buffered by many rocks that create tiny warm pools or great expansive flat slabs that the waves lap over. This beach feels mystic and often I expected to see a mermaid sitting in the morning sun alongside our elusive morning turtles. There are very few visitors that venture past an old brick wall that sits at the beginning of the beach even though the sand is fine and white and the sea is warm and calm.
I spent many mornings with other volunteers endlessly trekking these beaches, digging sand, hammering bamboo, measuring countless distances and reading/writing incessant monotonous GPS coordinates but we all grew to love it and see the best in every situation we encountered.
Never in my life have I laughed so much, made such close bonds, thought about life the way I did and felt so fulfilled and rewarded. I laughed to the point of my stomach aching and me snorting uncontrollably, the point of weak knees and tears streaming down my face. I forged bonds that although may not last a lifetime will be in my mind for the rest of my life; every single one was special and individual in its own way.
Nicola, Marietta, Polymnia, Abby, Ricardo, Gemma, Millie, Julie, Simon, Rhea, Giorgos, Abbie, Suzie, Rachel, Sophie, Jane, Gonzo, Vic, Sicily and so many more people I met along the way played a massive part in this journey and I can’t forget them. Only hope that we can see each other again some day!
To read another Archelon experience follow the link below to Sicily’s blog post: