Galery

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Emanuela Karastoyanova

While we relax around the city beaches or of the island and jump joyfully in the waves, the watchful eyes of the lifeguards are monitoring us. For them the sea in the summer is certainly not what it is for us. Because while we wonder how to spin one again, how to stand on our hands hands, on which wave to jump or how to swim from this cape to the other, they are busy with much more serious things. And although it seems that they are just being lazy sitting comfortably in their lounges and... that the eyes under sunglasses are not really watching over us, things are quite different

What does it mean to be a lifeguard tells us Marios Mavrantonis from the beach Talasea in Voula. His diploma for a lifeguard the 22 years old  boy took a year ago. He is currently graduating Soccer in the Sports Academy in Athens. To be a lifeguard for him is a vocation. He agreed to tell us about his work with pleasure and he gladly posed for photos. I waited for him after work as we had arranged and after the beach was empty we started a conversation. He says he loves the sea. While I’m listening to him talking about the sea, it seems to me that his eyes pass beyond the horizon...

GRREPORTER: What does the day of a lifeguard look like?

Marios Mavrantonis: I Come to the beach at 8 o’clock in the morning. I check the water and decide what flag to put. Green means that people can safely swim in the sea, orange-yellow means that people should be more careful, and red – that the sea is dangerous and people should not swim. Then I get from the doctor's office everything that I need and put them at my post. Then I also put the flag which means that I'm here.

GRREPORTER: Besides flags for the weather there are also flags for the lifeguards?

Marios Mavrantonis: Yes. They are two. Orange means that there is a lifeguard at the post, red means there isn’t.

GRREPORTER: As far as it comes to the weather it seems that there rarely is a red flag in Greece...

Marios Mavrantonis: This is true it is hardly ever necessary to put it up.

GRREPORTER: How do you watch alone over a whole beach? Is this possible in practice?

Marios Mavrantonis: Yes, it is possible (he laughs). There are another lifeguard, but we switch so that we can watch over the same places roughly at the same time .... During Saturdays and Sundays we work eight hours and during the weekdays we switch on every six hours. Today for example I worked from 14:00 o’clock to 20:00 o’clock because it is a weekday.

GRREPORTER: What do you like the most in this job and what you don’t like in it?

Marios Mavrantonis: I like that I am at the sea. The sea calms me down and relaxes me. This is precisely why I wanted to become a lifeguard at the beach. It is one thing to be a lifeguard at a pool and another thing at the sea. There is a difference. The sea calms me down... I like to watch it .... (he thinks). I also like to watch the people when they are happy, when they are swimming and are at the beach. There is nothing I don’t like. Rather I would say that I feel stress for being 8 hours in constant alert watching for something not to happen. This is the "negative" part of the job. Everything else I like. If I could I would make all people lifeguards! I wish everyone could do this job. It is very nice.

GRREPORTER: What actually started this whole story with your love for the sea and when did you decide to become a lifeguard?

Marios Mavrantonis: Well, I graduate this year from the Sports Academy in Athens. My major is football. This has been my favorite sport since I was a child. But it all started with swimming. I started to swim at a very early age. Later he had to stop it for a while because I could not manage with it and the football simultaneously. I couldn’t, however, be also far from the sea and the pool. Friends of mine from the sports academy, who had already become lifeguards told me: why don’t you become a lifeguard as well? They infected me with this 'virus' and behold, now that I'm lifeguard.

GRREPORTER: Are you planning to do this in the future?

Marios Mavrantonis: Yes, I would like to do this work as long as I can.

GRREPORTER: If you happen to save a man what feeling will seize you? As a lifeguard would you like to go through such an experience in your practice?

Marios Mavrantonis: This is a great responsibility to save the man. You both want, yet do not want to hold in your hands the life of another person. But I think that the feeling that seizes you when you finally save him is very beautiful and I would feel really happy that I have saved the life of man.

GRREPORTER: Is the lifeguard afraid that the drowning man might drag him down to the bottom of the sea?

Marios Mavrantonis: No. All lifeguards are trained how to save. You know, that when going to save a man anything might happen to you. Exercises that we do while we are learning are related to what could happen to you while trying to save a person. He may have lost consciousness, and can be conscious and trying to attack you. If he hasn’t lost consciousness he can bear down on you and drown you.

GRREPORTER: Yet you still think about your life when you enter the water, right?

Marios Mavrantonis: Of course. First look after your life, then after the life of the victim. You are not going there so that the other one can drown you, but to save his life.

GRREPORTER: What are the dangers that the sea hides in itself?

Marios Mavrantonis: The dangers are many. Both great and small. The sea is friend and an enemy at the same time. If you do not know it, it is difficult. Before I started working on this beach I was coming to swim in the sea. I already knew it. Each lifeguard must know how has the bottom formed at the moment, are there any stones, how far you can step... This is a must care about people. There are currents that can drag you while swimming even though they are less common for the waters of the Athenian bays. Dangerous are also the severely burning jellyfish... The biggest danger, which a lifeguard faces however does not come from the sea, but from the man beside him ... As I already said before the problem is in how will the drowning man react to the one who is trying to save him. To save himself he will try to pull down the lifeguard in order to come to the surface himself. And this is exactly the biggest problem. A man who doesn’t know how to rescue should not be trying to do it. The drowning man is climbing on you like a buoy. He wants to save himself. The sea is a sea ... You don’t know what it hides for you...

Another problem are people who enter into the water after having eaten plenty of food. They say to themselves: "What so bad could happen?". But if you swallow water and loose consciousness things become very dangerous.

GRREPORTER: Where exactly is the problem of entering the water with a full stomach?

Marios Mavrantonis: When you eat your heart is trying to send more blood which is needed for the digestion of food. If you decide to enter to swim in the water it will try to deliver more blood to the whole body. It may be overloaded too much as it sends blood and energy throughout.

GRREPORTER: What mental and physical data must a lifeguard have?

Marios Mavrantonis: He should not be afraid that something will happen and he would not know how to react. Physical qualities are not so important. I was very surprised from this, when I went to the training for lifeguards. I'm not the man with the strongest body in the world, but if I have to rescue someone heavier than me will rescue him. The most difficult to rescue people are not the chubby ones, but those with strong muscles. The water lifts the obese people to the surface more easily. Muscles are a problem, and so are the people who are trying to be heroes... The lifeguard really doesn’t need to have any particular physical qualities. If you know how you can also save a man. Of course it certainly is good for the lifeguard to have some physical strength. But in the water things are different ... In the sea we are all equal. Where there is no bottom we are all equal. Experience is what really matters. Experience and whether you arewell-trained.

GRREPORTER: Until what age a person can be a lifeguard?

Marios Mavrantonis: As long as he could last. One may be 50 years old and feel like 25 and can save everyone. Or one may be 20 years old and be cowardly and do more bad than good to someone. Depends on how a man feels. I know some lifeguards who are 46 and 47 years old who are as young people. They are better than me that I am 22 years old. What matters is experience.

GRREPORTER: Your job just seems to me a bit difficult ... You are watching all day everybody bathing in the water and you're all the time at your post on the coast. Are you not getting angry sometimes that you can’t enjoy the sea as the others do?

Marios Mavrantonis: It doesn’t bother me that I can not go into the sea. It can do this before or after work if I have time.