News - 1st Diving Marathon

Author: Ioannis Triantafillidis

On Saturday the 23rd of June 2007 The Hellenic Underwater Times (www.huts.gr) organized, for the first time ever in Greece, the 1st Diving Marathon. A charity event, whose purpose was to raise financial aid to the non profit organization "The Smile of a Child" which houses, protects and helps abandoned or abused children. The Hellenic Underwater Times was recently awarded first prize for the best educational website at the Antibes 2006 Underwater Films Festival.

For 24 hours the Beach of Astir Palace Hotel, one of the most famous beaches of Athens, hosted a variety of events inside and outside of the water. The Zea Harbour Project supports such initiatives and participated in the event with two activities.

1. ZHP staff Mads Moeller Nielsen and Ioannis Triantafillidis participated in the diving sessions and brought some smiles to the other participants. While the temperature was around 40 degrees Celsius they turned up fully geared with the diving set up used to conduct archaeological work in the harbours of Piraeus. Diving in such a heat with dry suits and full-face masks seemed like a ‘diving-sauna’ to some of the participants!!



2. Furthermore the ZHP contributed to the lecturing sessions that were part of the event. The director of the ZHP Bjoern Lovén greeted the organising committee and the participants of the 1st Diving Marathon and introduced the identity of the Zea Harbour Project. Then a PowerPoint lecture on the research & diving methods of ZHP was presented by Ioannis Triantafillidis. The contribution of ZHP was concluded with a screening of the 3D Animation Movie that has been produced for presentation to the public.