Ithaca sea kayaking skills holiday, Greece

During the season, we will be working on cleaning up Kaminia beach as part of our Responsibly Guided Kayaking Tours. This is a beautiful remote cove which can be reached only via a dirt track. Due to its position in the island, it receives debris from the fish farms close to the mainland which are more than 40 kilometres away by sea as the crow flies. During the winter storms, the winds bring broken polystyrene boxes used to pack and transport the fish. The polystyrene breaks down into tiny balls and mixes with the sand and pebbles. We have done already a lot to remove the large blocks, but there is still work to do to remove the small pieces and the tiny balls.

Our tour is a low impact way of exploring the coastline, we produce minimum pollution and we try to minimise our and our clients' use of plastic. For example, we do not use drinking straws and communicate this to cafes & bars with the intention of helping them modernise their attitudes towards plastic. We use re-usable shopping bags and dispose of our rubbish responsibly. Water re-fill bottles are not recommended at present, as there have been some issues with the water system which water filters cannot solve. The island government and tourism board, of which most of our partners are members, are lobbying central government to obtain the funds to fix the issues. When the president of Greece visited the island in summer 2018, the Maire asked for support on 3 key areas: Protection of the environment with a better water system; development and protection of the archaeological sites in the island; and better ferry services that provide a lifeline to islanders and their businesses. Therefore, it is important to support them in this effort as a break through in these areas would represent a huge environmental win.