On the morning of Monday, August 31, 2026, off the eastern sands of Rethymno, a seventy-six-year-old tourist from Poland entered a sea that had already announced its own treachery through the relentless snapping of double red flags. His decision set in motion an immediate, frantic sequence of CPR by local lifeguards and EKAB paramedics, culminating in his declared death at Rethymno General Hospital and a subsequent investigation by the Rethymno Port Authority to determine whether his ending was written by the water itself or by a sudden betrayal of the heart before he ever submerged.
Madre mía. Yesterday was one of those days when the sea seemed determined to remind everybody who was actually in charge.
The wind had been working since early morning, the water was rough, and along much of the Cretan coast the red flags were doing exactly what they are supposed to do: telling people, quite clearly, that today was not the day to demonstrate their swimming abilities to the Mediterranean.
Here in Ammoudara, it was a long shift. When the sea becomes like that, you spend less time enjoying the view and considerably more time watching people who have apparently decided that a coloured flag is merely a suggestion issued by somebody who has not personally met them.
Por favor.
There is a particular expression some tourists develop when they see a red flag. First they look at the flag, then they look at the waves, and finally they look at the lifeguard, as though they are waiting for us to explain that, although the conditions appear dangerous to everybody else, we have conducted a private assessment and determined that they, uniquely, possess the necessary qualifications to enter the water.
Sometimes they even point toward the sea and give you that little shrug.
But I am a good swimmer.
Yes, amigo, perhaps you are. That is wonderful news. I am delighted for you. Unfortunately, the sea has not received your résumé.
A good swimmer can still be caught by a current. A strong swimmer can still become exhausted. Someone who has spent half their life swimming in the sea can still find themselves in trouble when the wind, waves, and currents decide to cooperate against them. The Mediterranean is not impressed by confidence, nationality, or previous swimming experience.
And yesterday, the conditions were difficult enough that even I looked at the water and thought, heck, I’m not going for a swim today.
That should probably be enough of an explanation.
I was working in Ammoudara, so I did not see what happened in Rethymno, and I am not going to invent a story simply because people enjoy having one. The investigation will establish what happened.
What we know is that on Monday morning, a 76-year-old Polish man was found unconscious in the sea in the area east of Rethymno beach. The Rethymno Port Authority was alerted, assistance was provided at the scene, and he was transported by EKAB ambulance to Rethymno General Hospital. Despite the efforts of rescuers and doctors, he could not be saved, and his death was confirmed at the hospital.
The circumstances remain under investigation, and an autopsy has been requested to establish the exact cause of death.
Among lifeguards, however, news travels quickly. We are not a particularly large community on an island like Crete, and when the sea is difficult across several beaches at the same time, we talk. We know which beaches are struggling, where rescues have taken place, which currents are behaving badly and, inevitably, which tourists have decided that the warning applies to everybody except themselves.
It is one of the strange privileges of the job that you spend your day watching people make perfectly avoidable mistakes and then have to remain polite while explaining why the mistake was, in fact, a mistake.
The red flag exists for a reason.
It is not there to spoil your holiday. It is not there because lifeguards are afraid of the sea. We spend our working lives beside the sea. We know it, we watch it, and when necessary we go into it to bring people back.
So when the person whose job is to rescue swimmers looks at the water and tells you that swimming is a bad idea, perhaps, just perhaps, por favor, believe him.
You do not need to prove anything.
Sit on the beach. Have a coffee. Eat something. Take photographs. Complain about the wind if that makes you happy. You are on holiday, after all.
The sea will still be there tomorrow.
And if you are lucky, tomorrow it will be beautiful, calm and inviting, and you can go swimming without making the lifeguard wonder whether he should start filling out paperwork before you have even reached the water.
