Spyros Kasimatis, the man that everyone in Kythera calls «Captain Spyro», was these days away from the familiar Chytra: in the hall of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Athens. There, in the event of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection for the review of the 2025 fire season and the presentation of the projects of the «AEGIS» programme, was honoured for its lifesaving intervention in the great fire of Kythera on 26 July.
In a ceremony where officers of the Fire Brigade, the Armed Forces, the Police, the Coast Guard, the Emergency Medical Services, the Forestry Service, voluntary groups and institutions - among them the Civil Protection Office of the Municipality of Rhodes - «Captain Spyros» also took to the podium as a link in this great chain of Civil Protection.
26 July 2025: The day Kythera had no way out
At noon on Saturday 26 July, Kythera was engulfed in flames. Many villages were evacuated, the winds were constantly strengthening the fronts, while repeated messages were sent by 112 to evacuate residents to safe areas.
In Mylopotamos, 139 people - families with young children, elderly people, tourists and even pets - were found trapped in Limniona Bay. An isolated beach, with no pier, no cell phone signal, fire coming down from the mountain behind them and the sea as their only way out.
The Coast Guard Operations Center coordinated a rescue operation with one L.S. float and three private boats. Among them, the tourist «Glass Bottom» of Spyros Kasimatis - the boat with the glass bottom that every summer takes visitors to Chytra and the «hidden» coastal beauties of the island.
The captain who went against the fire
That day, Captain Spyros did not make the usual Capsule-Hytra route. He set course for Limniona. The sea was swollen, the air was full of smoke, the fire was approaching the slope above the beach and the coast was too shallow for boats.
Thanks to his experience, Spyros Kasimatis managed to bring the «Glass Bottom» as close as possible to the sandy beach and start boarding the stranded people. Children, elderly people, families with babies in their arms, people with severe disabilities, all passed on board.
According to the testimonies, the Glass Bottom typically holds 45 passengers. On that day, Captain Spyros took over 80 people in total, while the rest of the rescued people boarded the other boats. For many of these people, the ability of this particular boat to reach the shore was a matter of life and death.
The price of this act was heavy. Captain Spyros saw his vessel suffer severe mechanical damage from the overload and the adverse conditions prevailing at the time. The tourist season effectively ended for him on 26 July.
From rescue to solidarity
A few days later, when Captain Spyros announced that the «Glass Bottom» was going out of service and that repairs would require tens of thousands of euros, a wave of support started from Kythera and spread throughout Greece and the diaspora. Under the title «Help us support the Captain of Kythera» - online campaign launched on GoGetFunding.
Within a few weeks, over 40,000-50,000 euros were collected from hundreds of donors: residents, holidaymakers, people he had guided around the island, and some of those he took out of Limnionas that afternoon. The campaign detailed the circumstances of the rescue and spoke of «86 lives» saved thanks to his boat.
In the end, the amount needed was supplemented by a donation from the insurance company that covered the boat, which - although the insurance policy did not cover this «peculiar» case - chose to cover the rest of the cost, moved by the captain's story.
At the Ministry's event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, where the projects of the «AEGIS» programme were presented, Minister Yannis Kefalogiannis described 2025 as a «stress test» year for the National Civil Protection Mechanism.
«Cooperation, planning, planning, prevention, training and operational preparedness are not concepts on paper, they are factors that save lives», the Minister stressed, giving the outline of the Ministry's philosophy. In this context, the story of Captain Spyros served as a concrete example: a man of the sea, who does not belong to any uniformed body, but is part of the wider «umbrella» of Civil Protection because, at the time of crisis, he did what was needed.
The honorary distinction he received at the ceremony - alongside officers, service members, volunteers and bodies such as the Municipality of Rhodes« Civil Protection Office - is not only for him. It is a recognition for all the »anonymous" people who, in islands and mainland areas, go into the fire, the sea, the floods, with their own means to get others out alive. And perhaps it reminds us of something else: that many of these people ask for nothing, expect no prizes and, sometimes, are not only not rewarded but even end up being blamed by the state itself. As happened recently with the two volunteers in the fires of Patras, who faced criminal charges as they fought to help.
For Kythera, Captain Spyros was already a hero before the lights and the awards. The image of «Glass Bottom» entering the smoke of Limniona was etched in the collective memory of the island long before it reached Athens or the international media.
His award from the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection comes to close a first circle: from fire, to rescue, to solidarity and now to official recognition. And to remind us that, behind the big numbers of statistics and budgets, Civil Protection is - and will always be - judged on the faces and decisions of specific people, in the most difficult hour.
Below is the full video of the event.
