ACTIVITY: Free diving for sponges

CASE: GSAF ND.0108

DATE: Unknown, but before 2003
LOCATION: Aegean Sea, probably near the
island of Symi in the southern Dodocanese
Islands, Greece.*

NAME: Unknown
DESCRIPTION: He was a Greek male.

NARRATIVE: Author Michael N. Kalafatas

relates the following in his book, The
Bellstone:
“Yannis Detorakis tells a story about Stathis
Hatzis that both relects his alertness as a
diver and the preoccupation of the divers
with the women left behind. One day Stathis
surfaced from a naked dive (sic. free dive)
with no sponges at a site where the captain
knew there to be sponges. When a naked
diver dived, usually it was only after the
captain or another crew member had
spotted sponges on the sea bottom by looking through a glass-bottomed bucket, called a
yiali.

When Stathis surfaced without sponges, the captain was angry, “Oraio merokamato mou
kanis!” (A wonderful day’s work you do for me!) “Didn’t you see the damn sponges in
front of you? What have you been doing all this time?” Stathis replied that he had heard a
huge noise. Surely a big fish was nearby, he said, because he had heard the rush of a
school of little fish. The captain turned to Mihalakis, the man with the yiali, and asked if
he had seen anything? “No,” Mihalakis said. Stathis snapped back, “I didn’t see anything.
I heard the rush of little fish. Let’s find a new place to dive.”

“Another naked diver on board teased Stathis, saying, “You were just thinking of
Stathena,” using the feminine variant of Stathis to refer to Stathis’s wife and implying that
Stathis had just lost focus on the seafloor because he was thinking of his beloved
Stathena. Stathis flung his rope at the other diver in anger. The diver tied it around his
wrist and dove under the sea. Just after the diver disappeared, the man with the yiali
leaped to his feet because a huge black shadow at that moment passed under the boat.
The diver signaled to be pulled up; when the lifeline tender pulled the rope to the surface,
he found only the diver’s wrist and hand dangling at the end of the rope.”

“Despite broken eardrums and doubtless his mind on Stathena, Stathis had heard
correctly — the rush of little fish had signaled the presence of Big Fish.”

SOURCE: Kalafatas, Michael N. (2003) The Bellstone, The Greek Sponge Divers of the
Aegean. Brandeis University Press: Lebanon, New Hampshire, 287 pp, reference page 108

© Global Shark Accident File, 2004. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
NOTE: Manolis Bardanis notes that Michael Kalagatas (author of The Bellstone), mentions
that this incident was recorded by Giannis Detorakis, and that it appears in Detorakis’ book
Conqueror the Deep. GSAF does not have a copy of Detorakis’ book but according to
Bardanis, Detorakis states this attack took place in the sea off Cyrene, Libya.

© Global Shark Accident File, 2004. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.