Goodbye Dimitri

Yesterday, 25 October, was a sad day. Our friend Dimitris Kassandrinos, head teacher of the secondary school in Tilos, left the island for the last time. 

Sometime in the afternoon of 24 October, he was in his car going up to the monastery of Ayios Panteleimonas with a German woman called Uta, who had recently become his girlfriend, when the car went over the side of a steep cliff, and both were killed. The authorities are investigating how it happened. He was noticed missing yesterday morning, and a local who keeps goats up that road saw something. A rescue team came in by helicopter and during the afternoon the two bodies were recovered from the deep ravine. 

Dimitris, originally from Volos, was around 50 years old and had lived in Tilos 11 years; he was a chemistry and biology teacher and in recent years was head teacher of the secondary school. He told me he wished I'd used his real name in my book. He visited his family in the area around Volos during school holidays and his mother came to stay during the winter.

When in Tilos, throughout the year, Dimitris spent most afternoons in the sea, fishing for octopus. When I first came to Tilos, he took me out snorkelling and introduced me to the hidden beaches and underwater life of the island, and drove me up to the monastery to see the sunset over the sea, a view he loved. Who knows, perhaps it was his last. Someone who had spoken to Uta said they were happy together.

Yesterday, as the sun went down, they were being taken down to Livadia. In the evening, under a sky full of bright stars, the Milky Way clearly visible, a boat came to take them away.

Today, 26 October, he would have been celebrating his name-day. It being a Saturday, he would undoubtedly have been out in the sea somewhere. I walked up the monastery road to see where it happened - a beautiful place - and then down to Plaka, to the little bay on the promontory. I'd brought my snorkel with me. I saw anemones with their wavy orange hair, a small eel's ribbon-body curling around a rock, and even a beautiful fikopsaro with a tail so fine and silver it looked like a needle. And all the sea creatures he showed me how to find...

Kalo taxidi