Gerasimos Kavvadias will compete at the CMAS Euro-African spearfishing Championship in Montenegro from 22 to 25 October. The competition will be shown live with special contents for subscribers also at sea on Apnea Passion Magazine Spearfishing Facebook page. You can subscribe now for 2,49€ instead of 10,49€ at https://www.facebook.com/Apneapassion/subscribe/. Gerasimos is a Greek athlete, and is a man of few words. As a competitor, he is self-effacing, but when he speaks, his words carry weight. He does not have a long list of competitions under his belt, mostly because his job as a biology teacher leaves him with very little free time during the peak competition months. However, his track record in the events he has managed to attend is highly impressive.
Kavvadias has competed in seven individual events and one team event at the Greek National Championships, capturing two first-place individual finishes, one first-place team finish, three second places, and one third place. Representing the Greek National Team, he has competed in three World Championships—finishing third in Syros, fifth in Sardinia, and tenth in Laredo—and secured a fourth-place finish at the Euro-African Championship in Tunisia. Kavvadias also enjoys competing in smaller events like those in Palma de Mallorca and Mali Losinj, where he can fully appreciate the beauty of a spearfishing championship without the intense pressure of a major world event.
The Beginnings of a Lifelong Journey
Valentina Prokic: When and how did your passion for spearfishing begin?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: I began spearfishing as a summer activity, accompanying my father in the mid-1980s. I started by swimming next to him, just watching, mesmerized as he tracked and caught octopuses and, occasionally, a grouper. Back then, everything happened in shallow water, so I could witness and learn every detail of the hunt. In the summer of 1988, I bought my first 60 cm Balco speargun, made by a historic Greek brand that closed down many years ago. In a way, that was the beginning of the greatest journey of my life. The Mediterranean was full of life and forgiving of my poor technique. Despite my short breath-holds and minimal equipment—small rubber fins, no wetsuit, just a mask and a small speargun that I could load with my little hands—I could often catch a good sargo or a small grouper. I was happy simply to be mimicking my father and his spearo buddies, who, in our young eyes, were our greatest heroes!
The big evolutionary challenge was learning to dive during the winter. That came later, when I bought my first wetsuit at the age of thirteen. Against my parents’ wishes, I spent all my savings in one go—money I had accumulated through two years of strict budgeting and hard work in my father’s shop. Oh, how many GameBoy cartridges I could have bought with that money! But the only game in my teenage mind was played underwater, and its final boss wore a silver-blue robe and was called Dentex!
Mastering techniques and respecting the habitat
VP: What are your favorite spearfishing techniques, and which species do you most enjoy fishing?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: This is a question that has a different answer every time, depending on the terrain. For example, in Crete, I like to dive deep with variable weight, using ambush or agguato techniques to catch big mottled groupers or dentex. In Halkidiki, I prefer to start my dive in shallow water and follow an underwater route that offers the best possible coverage, trying to trick and eventually approach big goldblotch groupers. In general, I mostly enjoy spearing fish outside their holes. I think it is a more discreet and less invasive way of fishing when it comes to preserving their habitat.
Accidental Entry into Competitive Spearfishing
VP: When did you start competing? What do you like about competing?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: I really started competing in 2014. Before that, I had competed for just two or three days, purely for fun, in local championships organized by a club in Thessaloniki (SFYKTH). I remember my first day in the National Championship being an absolute disaster! But after that, everything worked out quite well. Competing opened a completely new and different chapter in my spearfishing journey. I actually started participating in championships by accident. That year, the Nationals were held in Corfu, and one of the zones was literally in front of my father’s house! The dates were also convenient, as they fell during the Easter school break, and Tasos Chalaris, the owner of XT Diving Pro, was looking for athletes to represent the brand. Fate had apparently predetermined that I would make a nearly 24-hour round trip from Crete to Corfu just to fulfill a dream I never even knew existed in my mind: competing in the Greek National Championship! After that experience, I was hooked. To be honest, I don’t like to isolate just one part of the experience and say it is the best thing about competing. As the saying goes, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. But if I had to choose, I would say it is that internal urge to be better than I was the last time I competed.
Looking ahead to the Euro-African Championship
VP: Your next competition goal is the Euro-African Championship in Montenegro, representing Greece as part of the National Team. What are your expectations?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: My expectations are always high, but after going in Bar, Montenegro early September for some scouting, I honestly don’t know what to expect! The water conditions are changing rapidly from day to day, fish are not abundant, and they are constantly moving into deeper water. In the shallows, there was a total lack of qualifying fish. I hope that changes by late October, closer to the dates of the championship.
Gear and technology beneath the surface
VP: You are an XT Diving Pro and Garmin athlete. Which products do you particularly like and why?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: From the vast catalog of XT Diving products, I prefer to use Daiwabo and Yamamoto smooth skin/open-cell wetsuits and DeepMed carbon fins. Daiwabo is the best in terms of buoyancy, while Yamamoto is excellent for thermal insulation. Both are extremely elastic and comfortable. DeepMed fins are the best fins I could ever have because they are custom-tailored to my specific dive profile and needs.
I also use a Garmin Descent Mk3i dive watch and a GPSMAP 8410xsv chartplotter with a GT51 transducer. Combined, these Garmin products make my life—especially in a high-pressure competition environment—much easier. They are fast and precise, unlike any other electronic equipment I have used.
Drama at 43 Meters: The most emotional catch
VP: What has been your most special and emotional catch? Could you tell us a few words about it?
Gerasimos Kavvadias: That’s a tough question! I really don’t know. Most of us would probably point to a rare or exceptionally large catch. For me, the most emotional catch I can remember is a large dusky grouper I caught on Day 1 of the Euro-African Championship in Tunisia. I shot it in a narrow wreck opening at 42–43 meters. Leading up to that, everything had gone wrong. I had received some incredibly sad news from Greece that kept me awake all night. On the day of the competition, the current was brutal—over two knots from the surface all the way to the bottom—making deep diving nearly impossible. Before even shooting the 20-kilo grouper, I lost my competition buoy with the variable weight. The weight hit the bottom and acted as an anchor, and the sheer force of the current dragged the buoy under, preventing it from resurfacing. I lost critical time and my composure trying to find a solution, feeling like all my scouting efforts over the previous days were completely wasted.
After coordinating with the committee and sorting things out, I continued to the wreck where I found the grouper. I managed a perfect headshot, but the extreme depth combined with the tight spaces of the wreck, the size of the fish, and my poor mental state created the most demanding physical and psychological challenge I have ever faced. After three dramatic dives, I finally brought the big grouper to the surface. Every time I recall the feeling of those dives, it gives me goosebumps. I felt like I was in a completely empty void: just me, the fish, the surrounding water, and all the chaotic thoughts running through my head at that moment…
Balancing classroom biology and the Mediterranean Sea
VP: Could you tell us a little about your work? You are a teacher, but you still manage to go spearfishing and compete.
Gerasimos Kavvadias: Yes, I teach biology at a high school in Heraklion, Crete. This is what I do for a living, and spearfishing occupies most of my free time—for which I constantly have to apologize to my wife! It is definitely a struggle to keep my mind fully focused on both demanding activities, but balancing the structure of teaching with the freedom of the sea keeps me grounded. In the beginning of my competition career, this was easier. As the years pass, it is getting more difficult, and now I feel overwhelmed. I suppose I am at the end of my athletic career. Maybe this Euro-African will be the last championship I participate in. But I am sentimentally attached to Mallorca and may hold on for one last World Championship next year over there. I don’t really know, so I hope that Montenegro is not a farewell to competing. Of course, I will not stop spearfishing until I can’t load a speargun! This is not coming soon (sorry again, my dear Stavroula)!!!
