Our WW Community's story

Welcome to the page of our small white water community.

What I 'm about to write, is a short historical account, of kayaking in Greece, up to the formation of today's Greek white water community. The information comes from publications and personal knowledge, it is not a scientific review or an essay, meaning that I may as well be wrong or about some details, or about who made what first. You are more than welcome to share your information and your point of view, by simply visiting the guestbook!

My account is about kayakers and the developement of today's kayaking community.

In Greece, white water activities started in 1985, when some radicals from "EOS Aharnon" and "EOS Petritsiou" mountaineering club, introduced the first 4m kayaks in the Greek rivers.

Of course kayaking wasn't something totally strange. A lot of Germans and other Europeans, used to come in Greece during the spring, many years ago. With their vans racked with kayaks, they were travelling to places that had never seen tourists before.

The rivers that were paddled back then, gained the Greek reputation for world class, grade III to IV rivers. Guide books had been published, about a sport that we didn't know and couldn't understand then.
Those guidebooks were the Alphabet and the Bible together, for the still virgin Greek rivers. The updated guidebooks, with Greco (photo), of F.Bettinger and J.Longden, to be considered as the best, still serve the sole* reliable information to the adventurous paddler.

WW rafting, an easier aspect of river paddling, seemed to be more appropriate for the local adventurers. The few, that had the outside experience, realised that WW rafting would soon become the leading adventurous sport. A sport that could have easy aceess to the masses and could support a succesful enterprise.

Evinos river and Voidomatis, were the rivers that hosted the first white water activities in Greece. Alpin and Paddler were the first companies to introduse rafting trips to those rivers. From that point, it was just a matter of time, since the day that the first kayaks appeared in the river, as an escort to the hired rafts.

But kayaking, technically being much more difficult than rafting, introduced the first kayak schools, in a basic level.
The information was little, the technic was hardly teached, mostly studied in books and videotapes, eskimo roll was then more of a status point. Those were the days, that a handful of Greek paddlers, made the first runs of Greek rivers, as a team of kayakers.

Kyritsis brothers of Paddler rafting company in Konitsa and Yannis Holevas were among the pioneers in this sector.
But it took one man's decision, to lead to the breakthrough of kayaking in Greece...

...pretty soon, right here

* Detailed paddling information on Greek rivers have also been published in monthly Greek outdoors magazine "Korfes" mainly by Yannis Holevas.

History lessons 2 - to be continued

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