October 31st is the celebration of Halloween and also a perfect occasion to release two more of our rehabilitated turtles.
“Petros” was a lucky juvenile loggerhead that was rescued within the harbor of Piraeus on the 17th May 2011 and diagnosed with two injured flippers.
The other juvenile turtle, “Achilleas” was found in Mykonos a couple of days before “Petros”. He had swallowed two hooks...

On 7 October 2011, a cloudy Friday afternoon, four of the turtles – all young ones – were released into the sea by the RC Coordinator and volunteers. The Aqua Divers Club, who are supporters of ARCHELON, kindly transported everyone to the release site in their boat.

With the help of the public and some responsible fishermen, both of them members of the Archelon National Rescue Network, we are able to save dozens of sea injured sea turtles every year.

On Monday 10th of October we drove down the coast to the beach of Legrena where we watched “Giorgos” crawl back into the sea.

.... Life is fragile, and looking at a struggling hatchling stuck on his back really puts things into perspective. It is sort of an analogy for what we as humans need to do. We've made these problems for ourselves, but if we work together, it is possible to ‘flip that baby hatchling right side up’, and I hope that ARCHELON continues to grow and protect these turtles for many years to come....

Forty-nine volunteer organizations who believe in what they do got together on Sunday, 2 October, at Technopolis in Gazi, Athens for the Wonder Festival,
a meeting of big and small wonders.
ARCHELON was there with its volunteers and staff.

A very large, unauthorized underwater structure made of steel mesh and rocks – an illegal breakwater – which had been erected without any environmental impact study at Marathonisi, Zakynthos, was demolished because it threatened to erode and destroy a part of an important Caretta caretta nesting beach.

The Programme includes a tour of the Center and the tanks with the injured sea turtles, a PowerPoint presentation, a discussion and comments about the causes and the solutions to ecological issues, as well as some surprises for the students and gifts for the classroom (posters, etc.).
Last year, 10,000 students and their escorts honored us by visiting the Center.

This summer marked another ‘sad’ record of injured sea turtle arrivals: There are currently 39 injured turtles in the tanks at the Center!

I found a turtle! Finally! After all this swimming, I found one! And I am all alone with her, maybe I could observe her closer without scaring her!

In cooperation with the Aquila Rithymna Beach Hotel, which is located close to the nest in question, the public excavation attracted about 200 observers, mainly tourists. Because of this, more volunteers were immediately brought to the excavation site to provide information to the crowd of observers about sea turtle nests and ARCHELON’s work.

Vibrations from the powerful sound system and noise from the crowd negatively affected the embryonic sea turtles, causing them to hatch prematurely and, in combination with the bright lights at the scene which disoriented them further, resulted in many of them tragically and needlessly losing their lives.

One of the onlookers said in a loud voice, ‘Now we should thank all these people who work without being paid so that we – here in our country – can have beautiful beaches and a clean environment,’ and everyone there applauded.

Let’s enjoy the pleasures of our beaches and the sea during the day, and leave them quiet for the turtles at night, without people, noise, lights, or beach furniture.
Let’s not unnecessarily add one more burden to the many serious problems which turtles in the area already face due to the destruction of their habitat.

In 2010, a group of volunteers from ARCHELON, The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece and scouts worked together to clean Vrondonero beach and the marine area adjacent to it, an area that is not daily wardened by the personnel of the NMPZ. The state of the beach and the marine area was very poor, and the effort to collect and remove all the waste for the coastal and marine area was remarkable. On the 3rd August 2011, ARCHELON team decided to repeat this activity!

While diving near the island of Arsida (near Sounion), Nikos, Giorgos, Vasilis and Eleni found an exhausted Caretta caretta turtle entangled in trimmer line and trying to float. They immediately rushed to her rescue...