Aled Powell

	Greece Lesvos Kalloni Crete Water Sports On the Beach Nightlife The Hotels

Water Sports

I worked for Tom and Margarita who owned and operated three water sports centers comissioned by different hotels in three villages.

Many view this as an easy and ideal summer job, but it was in fact a very physically demanding and challenging job, with very long hours, few breaks and infrequent days off!

Every morning I would cycle to breakfast at Rinela Beach and be on the beach by 8am to open-up the station, which required such an effort as to have me sweating by 8:30.

Going back to the harbor at the end of the day.

I was mostly on the beach for the rest of the day, making reservations and taking payment from guests, explaining the operation and safety guidlines for the various activities, and getting them started and finished by helping them into the water or taxiing them to the boats.

Lunch-break was as short as possible, eating in the hotel, and often only as long as it took for a return trip to the restaurant to bring lunch to the beach so we could keep on working.

As the last of the day's activities came to an end, I began to close.

When I had pulled everything out of the water and locked it away safely, I would cycle 8km to Creta Sun to help them with the last of their activities and to close up there, before cycling home (usually well after 7pm).

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Here's my colleague, Erik from The Netherlands, on the jet-ski taking a couple of youngsters to the boat...

...myself, posing
on the paracraft...

...and Tom at the wheel of the paracraft.

Either Erik or I would lauch the parasail and guest from the platform of the paracraft and help them land back safely on board, while Tom kept the speed and direction of the boat stable by keeping a watchful eye on wind and sea conditions, as well as the behavior of the parasail.

Photos such as this one (left) of myself were taken of everyone who "flew" with us while the lucky few would have an incoming airplane to nearby Heraklion Airport in the background.

I took this photo as I came down, one of us would usually be standing on the platform to assist the guest.

See the Hotels page for photos taken while parasailing that show the amazing views.

I believe this is Margarita flying at the end of a day's work to dry the parasail.

If the parents didn't want to go someone had to accompany the children on the jet-ski. In this case, it's me who's holding-on for dear life.

Likewise, young children would be accompanied on the banana. I'm at the back of this one (right).

Erik is on the back of this second banana, with my friend Dave in front of him, and Dave's friend in front of him.

The sliders are very popular, as they allow a variety of riding positions and even for two people to ride on the same one!

Dave and Shantell are riding in this picture.

Many more available activites have not been shown here.

These include pedalo, canoe, windsurf, tube, catamaran and water-ski.

I tried water-skiing a couple of times at the end of the summer when business was slower, but I don't have any photos of me! (However, a photo of me water-skiing is on the Korea pages of this site.)