Sponge diving on Castellorizo

[Administrator]

While it has been accepted that the sponge fishing industry was very active on Castellorizo in the nineteenth century, there are few first-hand accounts that attest to such activity on the island.

One of the most valuable sources comes from a French diplomat who recorded in 1839 that between 290-300 divers would travel to Tripoli from Castellorizo each year and that they would dive along the Syrian coast, as far as Alexandretta, to depths of 29 fathoms (!).

These young Castellorizians were apparently 'managed' by a certain Tuscan by the name of Bigliotti who was based in Rhodes. He would advance them the necessary funds to see them through the winter, but would commit them to a contract during the summer months that would compel them to sell the sponges they fished at a pre-determined price, thus ensuring his profit.

Much later, an Ottoman official recorded (in 1886) that Castellorizo had some 100 sponge workshops, more than Kalymnos, and second only to Simi (which apparently had 150).

What is intriguing about all of this is that these practices had ceased on Castellorizo by the first decades of the twentieth century and, since then, sponge diving has all but disappeared from popular memory among Castellorizians.

It would be fascinating to know if anyone has access to any family records or ancestral reminiscences of the sponge fishing industry on Castellorizo. Traces of an activity that was clearly so important for the islanders in the nineteenth century must surely remain somewhere in the Castellorizian network!

Nicholas

[ingerid]

Dear Nicholas,
as I have told you before, my grandfather describes in a document in details different ways to do the sponge fishing, but I assume you are familiar with them all. He also mentions rich businessmen on the islands with connections to Alexandria, Beirut and Pireus. He writes that they were unable to keep on with the sponge-trading because new costume-borders were made, there were difficulties with the currency and because of export prohibition. I suppose this is all well known to you. He writes that a few people still worked as sponge divers at Castellorizo when he lived there around 1930. Ingerid

[Kerry Hatzimihali]

Well you haven't told us before, so please elaborate in detail
Cheers,
Kerry

[ingerid]

Sorry! My grandfather, Siby Nedland, went to some other places where they did sponge-fishing as well, and there might have been some local variations. This is, however, how he describes sponge-fishing on Castellorizo, Kalymnos and Simi.

The oldest way to do the sponge-fishing was to dive without anything else than a large knife to cut the svamp with, and a large net hanging as a bag from the divers neck to collect them in. They also had a stone, weighing around 20 kg, to get down quickly. The stone was tied to the end of a thin line, and was pulled up seperately. This stone was like a talisman to the diver, and there were often some marks carved on the stone to bring the diver good luck. Another line was tied around the diver's handwrist, this was to pull him up with.

Holding the stone in front of him, the diver plunged into the water. The stone helped him to control his direction under water. Quite often they dived to 18 fathoms (1,8288 m, or 6 feet), and they could stay under water for as long as 3 min. The most common depth they went to was between 10 and 15 fathoms. With the stone, he regulated the speed and direction to a group of svamps, cut of some and smeared the white juice from the svamp where it was growing. By doing this he could come back in a couple of years time to collect more. When he needed air, he pulled the line around his left wrist, and was quickly pulled up. Two men, called "kolaisis" shifted to do so, and two clever "kolaisis" should be able to pull up a diver from 12 fathoms with three pull each.

To be a "first-kolaisis", the man holding the line while the diver was diving, was a difficult job. The line had to be loose enough to give the diver room to move, and tight enough so it didn't get caught around a stone on the bottom.

Accidents happened when somebody tried to save money by using a "kolaisis" without the nessesary experience.

Another danger to the diver was something living in the sea like a calamari (don't know how to translate it) that could catch the divers arm while it clinged on to stones on the bottom. The diver then had to manage to cut of the "calamari's" arm to free himself.

A newer way to dive was to use a "muzuna". This was kind of a diving mask with glasses. For some reason the diver often got tubercolosis by using it.

A third way to do the job was with a divingsuit and helmet. Surprisingly this method caused most injuries. Divers using this method could dive to 40 or 50 fathoms and stay down for 20 min. Because of the way this suit used the differences in the air pressure to provide air for the diver, the pressure on the divers neck could damage his nerve-system. The lower part of the diver's body could get partly paralysed. Divers using this suit were called 'mechanicos', and although they were very clever under water, they often moved in a funny way on land. A dance was named after the mechanicos, an injured diver led the dance, while the village tried to copy him.

Earlier a sponge-fisher that died while diving had to be buried outside the church-wall. It was to compare with suicide. Some places the family that expected a member home from sea, was dressed in black in case their family-member shouldn't return.

[Administrator]

Nick Bogiatzis and I recently tracked down an obscure source (Simmonds) who says that, by the time of his visit in 1861, the number of divers on Castellorizo had "halved" from what it had been only some years earlier. According to Simmonds this was because many of the young men of the island found it "more profitable to engage themselves as seamen in the regular trading vessels."

The surge in the island's trading activities might therefore explain why there is so little written about the sponge industry on Castellorizo. It also probably provides at least a partial answer to the question why so little is recorded about the activity in popular memory.

Nicholas

[morosini]

For those who haven't seen it, Michael Kalafatas' book The Bellstone: Greek sponge divers of the Aegean is very good. While it focusses on Simi, it also includes passages about Castellorizo. The details of the book are as follows:

The Bellstone: Greek sponge divers of the Aegean, by Michael N Kalafatas. Published by University Press of New England, 2003, 287pp, with illustrations.

morosini

[evan]

Hello all .... new here Born in west australia Perth my Grandparents on both side are from Castellorizo I know our surname is a nic name regarding sponge diving on Castellorizo My name is Drimatis my mother maiden name is Geromimos.
Evan

[Vanessa]

Hi, apparently my great grandfather and grandfather ( who passed away when i was 4 1/2 in 1977) were sponge divers from Simi. My grandfather married my grandmother who was from Kastellorizo( passed away Feb this year) so i will try to find out if they also were divers in Kastellorizian waters and anything else i can.

[ymyriklis]

Strictly from stories handed down from my grandparents, I was told that my great grandfather was a sponge diver who regularly traveled to Egypt to sell his goods. Eventually he migrated there and my Grandfather Ioannis Myriklis tou Kyriakou, was born in Alexandria around 1910 or so...
My great grandfather however was lost at sea however during one of his sponge diving excursions. I hear sponge diving was a very dangerous and trecherous occupation. If any of my Australian Miriklis relatives knows this story better please elaborate or correct.

[Nicholas]

Not many images survive that record sponge diving on Castellorizo, but here is one that our good friend from Italy, Antonio Vecchi, has shared.

 It shows some of the tools of the trade on a small vessel in the early 1940s by which time there was limited sponge and other commercial activity on the island:



Nicholas

[Administrator]

And here is one of the only surviving images of a sponge diver from Castellorizo, photographed with his bell-stone and sponge net in the late 1920s, courtesy of the collection of the late Sibbi Nedland from Norway:



Nicholas