The chap in the orange shorts and top is Mihalis, the lifeguard on the town beach in Ierapetra. I took this one from our favourite spot on the beach, where we go for a swim twice a week (sometimes more) throughout the season. As you can see, Mihalis has just posted the red flag, meaning no swimming allowed owing to the difficult sea. This was at 10.00am on Friday September 8th. It was a day or two after those devastating floods hit central mainland Greece during what the meteorologists called ‘Storm Daniel.’ That link takes you to a site where the storm is decribed in more detail, but I’ll just quote one chilling statistic from that page here: “…rainfall in Greece on 5-6 September …a reported 750 mm falling in 24 hours at a station in the village of Zagora. This is the equivalent of about 18 months of rainfall…”

The worst we saw here was the sea becoming agitated for a couple of days, which on reflection almost makes one feel guilty when you see what happened to not only Greece, but of course to Libya as well. The town beach here in Ierapetra, since it has a permanent lifeguard stationed on it all through the summer months, is hence classed as an organised beach, which is intended as a protection for the public, not as a needless restriction. Since we plonk ourselves this close to Mihali and his girlfriend Stavroula (also a qualified lifeguard) a couple of times every week, we’ve become pretty friendly with them as the summer’s progressed. Life as a beach lifeguard isn’t as exciting, or indeed as easy as one might think. For people who only visit for a week or two during their vacation, when they see the likes of Mihali and Stavroula lounging in their beach chairs, idling away the time under a brilliant blue sky, they may be forgiven for thinking, ‘What a gig. I’d love some of that.’

The reality is that Mihalis and Stavroula are driven half mad with boredom most of the time. They can’t really read or listen to music, because they need to have an eye on the people using the beach (in both directions from their ‘station’) all of the time. They usually arrive around 10.00am and are there until late in the afternoon, even into the evening during the really lighter months. They have to prepare themselves a packed lunch, since once they start their shift there’s no sloping off for even a couple of minutes. Imagine what would happen if they were to be absent just when someone got into difficulty in the water. So they have to stay in situ all the time until they can knock off. Mihalis is a thinker, and we’ve had quite a few conversations about the state of the planet and the prospects for any young Greeks wanting to carve out some kind of career whilst not having to emigrate from their homeland. That’s why he’s not a happy bunny. The trouble is, opportunities for him to ‘get on’ in the world are limited. In fact he’s thinking of going to Australia next year, where he hopes that life may be better, or at least the wages.

So, when the dawn came on Friday September 8th and the sea was rough enough to tempt even a surfer to go in, Mihalis saw an opportunity to be ever so slightly more busy than he usually is. Normally the bathing’s very safe on this beach, and most of the sea bottom is sandy all along its length. But, when the sea gets like this (see below) it can carve out a shelf in the bottom just a couple of feet from the water line, causing the unexpected bather to stumble and fall over. Plus, around fifty metres out from the water’s edge there are in places some large rocks that rise up to within a couple of feet of the surface when it’s calm (they are what’s causing that secondary surf-line a little further out in the second photo below). In calm conditions it’s a nice place to go snorkeling, but when the sea’s like this, it presents some challenges that involve potential danger…

Most of the time, it’s like this…

Mihalis, having hoisted the red flag on Friday Sept. 8th, was then kept busy trying to keep would-be swimmers out of the water. In order to do this he was constantly having to blow his whistle to attract the attention of people blithely going in for a dip. In fact, I almost entitled this post ‘Whistle while you work,” good eh? Now, you might think, ‘What’s the big deal? I’ve seen waters much rougher than this,” and you’d be partly right. The problem is though, if lesser experienced ones were to see others already in the water, they would be tempted to go in themselves too, and they may not be at all ready for the buffeting they’d be going to experience. One shoulder-high wave knocking someone over could be all that’s needed for a drowning to take place.

At one point when his back was turned, four or five ya-yas went in about thirty metres out for a chat while treading water. When Mihalis saw them, he blew his whistle and told them through his loudhailer to get out of the water. One of them piped up in reply, “You don’t need to worry about us. We know the water, we’re in no danger.“

‘It’s not you I’m worried about!” Replied Mihalis, “It’s less experienced ones thinking that if you can go in then so can they. Now I’m giving you sixty seconds to get out or I’ll be taking your details and you’ll risk a fine!!” The old ladies reluctantly complied, but not without a fair degree of ‘mourmoura‘ in the process. During the hour and a half or so that we spent there that day, he was constantly running back and forth along the beach while people kept ignoring the red flag and trying to get in for a dip before he could spot them. His whistle was a constant feature.

At least he and Stavroula had something to be getting on with that day. The next day it was flat calm sea and business as usual. Here are some more photos from this past few days….

Above: See that turquoise flask with the flat top, well that’s one of two such re-usable ‘cups’ that we take with us to the beach every time. The straw is one of two metal ones that we re-use also. When we get to the Volta Café, either Maria (the owner) or Gianni (the regular waiter) takes them from us and they prepare our freddo espressos in them. It’s not much, but at least it’s a tiny effort to use less disposable coffee cups, plastic lids and black plastic straws. In fact, as I understand it, for some reason black plastic isn’t recyclable, and it does pain us to see how many café-bars still use those straws all the time, and they come wrapped in cellophane too. I”m not saying we’re anything special, but shouldn’t we all be making a bit of an effort to help the environment, eh? Oh, and the beer? Just a little extra I ordered when my coffee was all gone. The crisps are complimentary too. I bet they’d cost an extra couple of quid in a UK pub.

Above: Looking up from our upper garden, that self-seeded pomegranate’s doing well this year. The jasmine’s slowly framing the mural too, which is gratifying.

Above: The beach at Gra Ligia, which never gets any busier than this at any time during the summer.

Above: And finally, two shots in the old town. I just like those little corners that spring surprises on you.

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