On a remote beach in Greece that no car can reach, a group of climbers spotted something moving between the rocks.
It was a baby seal. About a week old. All alone.
The sea was too rough for any boat to come. There was no phone signal on the beach.
So the people who found her did the only thing they could. They carried her out on their backs.
A Small Shape Between the Rocks
It happened on Saturday morning, October 17, on the Greek island of Kythira.
Vrettos Sklavos, a 43-year-old outdoor guide with the team Outdoor Activities Greece, was leading a group through a gorge past the village of Mylopotamos.
Their goal was Kalami Beach. The only way down is by rope. Vrettos set up the lines, and the group began to rappel.
One of the young women in the group reached the sand first. Between some stones, she noticed something moving.
When she got closer, she saw a tiny seal, struggling to move. She hurried to tell Vrettos.
“Is She Hurt?”
Vrettos climbed down and saw the pup for himself. He told the Greek news site Protothema she was clearly exhausted.
What shocked him most were her eyes. When she turned to look at him, he said, they were so red they looked ready to bleed.
He admitted he had no experience with seals at all. He didn’t even know if she would bite.
The pup kept licking at her back flippers. To Vrettos, it looked like she was showing them exactly where it hurt.
He was afraid she was injured. But he couldn’t call anyone. Nobody in the group had a signal on that beach.
So they climbed back out to find one.
Three Hours of Phone Calls
In Mylopotamos, the phones finally worked.
Vrettos first called Katerina Stathatou, a local veterinarian. She told them to contact the island’s animal welfare group and MOm, the Greek society that protects Mediterranean monk seals.
They also called the Coast Guard, hoping a boat could reach the beach and pick the pup up.
It couldn’t. A strong westerly wind was blowing at force 8 to 9, Vrettos said. No boat could get near Kalami.
The team sent MOm photos and videos of the pup. The experts studied them closely.
Their verdict brought some relief. The baby didn’t seem to be injured. She was dehydrated and malnourished.
MOm’s people believed she had been swept away by a wave. About 300 meters from the beach, Vrettos said, there’s a cave where seals go. That’s probably where she lost her mother.
After about three hours on the phone with MOm, Vrettos went back down to the beach.
Carried Out in a Climbing Bag
This time he brought the right tool for the job. A sack the team uses for rappelling.
He placed the little seal inside and brought her up safely, he told Protothema.
Keep Talking Greece reported that the team carried her on their backs across the rocks as they climbed back up the rugged gorge.
The pup was estimated to be about seven days old. She weighed only about 15 kilograms, roughly 33 pounds.
Members of Animal Aid Kythira helped get her off the beach and onward to care.
First stop: Katerina Stathatou’s veterinary clinic in Livadi, for emergency care.
The next afternoon, the pup rode a Seajets ferry to Piraeus, the port near Athens.
From there she went to MOm’s rehabilitation center, which sits inside the Attica Zoological Park in Spata.
A New Name and a New Fight
At the Athens Animal Hospital, the pup had blood work, biochemical tests and X-rays.
The news was better than anyone had feared. So far, MOm said, the tests showed no serious underlying problem beyond severe starvation and dehydration.
That’s still serious for a baby this young. It had weakened her whole body.
“Her health status is being closely monitored on a 24-hour basis,” MOm said in its update, as translated by Keep Talking Greece.
The goal, the group said, is “the gradual restoration of her health and physical condition, with the ultimate goal of returning her to her natural environment.”
She needed a name, too. MOm’s team asked Vrettos which girls’ names are common on Kythira.
He listed a few. One of them was Aphrodite. That’s the one they chose.
Vrettos is now, as the Greek press put it, her godfather.
And she isn’t alone at the center. MOm opened its announcement with a cheerful line.
“Alexis is no longer alone!”
The Day the Sea Was Too Rough
It’s easy to imagine how this could have ended.
A week-old pup, on a beach no boat could reach, in a storm, with nobody around to see her.
Instead, a group of climbers picked that exact morning to rope down to that exact beach.
Instead, a young woman looked twice at a small shape between the rocks.
And instead of grabbing her and guessing, they climbed back out, found a signal and asked the experts what to do.
That’s maybe the best lesson in the whole story. If you ever find a young seal alone on a beach, keep your distance and call a wildlife rescue group first.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is wait for the people who know how to help.
Aphrodite still has a long road ahead. But she’s warm, she’s fed, and she’s being watched over day and night.
And someday, if all goes well, she’ll go back to the sea she was born in.
Would you have climbed down that gorge for her? Tell us in the comments.
