Stella Forgiari-Kassou is 39 years old and lives in Mytilini. Since 2006, during the summer, she has been working with her husband on their coastal boat. The rest of the year, she deals with all the exterior work of the boats, while her husband deals with their wind trawler, “Taxiarchis”.

“Before I met my husband, I had no contact with the profession of fishery, nor with the sea, apart from the fact that I was born and raised on the island of Lesvos. I was working in a real estate office and at some point, a captain came to look at some houses. After a while, we found him a house and at the same time we found each other. From there, I began to learn about the sea and about fishing, lines, nets and fish. The first few times I went on the boat I was dizzy and disappointed because I didn’t believe I could do it. But never felt fear.”

“When I started fishing professionally, the industry was in a very good state! There were a lot of fish in the sea and the prices in the market were very good. Now, the catch has decreased significantly. At the same time, I can keep track of the records of aquatic litter that my husband has been carrying out for the past 5 years for the Fishing for Litter project funded by Athanasios C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation in collaboration with iSea. Especially in the beginning, the situation was disappointing in terms of aquatic litter.”

“I haven’t had many hard times working at sea. Something I will never forget isn’t about a stormy adventure, but the macabre adventure of a migrant family we found in our nets. It gave us such strong emotions, we were hesitant to approach the sea for days.”

“I learned to love and respect the sea, and this is exactly what I want to pass on to the next generations, and to the rest of the world. Its protection is now of major importance. There was no mobilization by the state entities in this area and they were blaming professional fishermen, for many years. The fishermen might have been the only ones who saw the disaster coming and warned others.”

“My mother-in-law managed to raise 9 children, casting the nets and at the same time placing the baby inside the wooden fish cage, so that the sea didn’t take it. Hard times. Today, clearly everything is much easier.”