Saronic Gulf

Ten months after the Agia Zoni II tanker sank in the Saronic Gulf, and following a widespread campaign to clean up tons of leaked fuel, local authorities say the sea and coastline have been depolluted.

The Saronic Port Authority on Monday announced that boats are not allowed to drop anchor in areas under its jurisdiction, including the sea area of Vouliagmeni Bay, until September 30.

The authority said the measure is part of efforts to secure bathers' safety and prevent accidents.

In the second initiative in one day, members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas barged into the Athens office of Dimitris Kaliambakos, a professor at the National Technical University of Athens. 

In a statement posted on an anarchist website, the group expressed its opposition to oil exploration in Epirus, a subject on which Kaliambakos has spoken on extensively in public.

Next month, from June 5-8, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is organizing an international, interdisciplinary and interfaith ecological symposium on the islands of the Saronic Gulf.

A passenger catamaran traveling to the islands of the Saronic and the Argolic Gulf with 297 people onboard was returning to Piraeus on Friday after a rope got tangled in one of its engines.

The Flying Cat 6 was covering the route from Piraeus to Poros, Hydra, Spetses and Porto Heli.

A Health Ministry decision on Friday lifted a ban on public swimming in the sea off several kilometers of Attica coastline, stretching from Piraeus to beyond Glyfada, imposed last fall following the Agia Zoni II oil tanker sinking off Salamina.

A Greek passenger ferry carrying 198 people onboard crashed into the port of Agistri, in the Saronic Gulf on Friday, injuring lightly five people, the coast guard said.

"Achaeos", which serves the Aegina-Piraeus route, was trying to dock when the collision happened. The passengers who suffered minor injuries were transferred to Aegina.

Ferryboats have been prohibited from sailing from the capital's port of Piraeus to the islands of the Aegean, as winds in that area reached a speed of 9 Beaufort on Thursday.

The sailing ban was imposed at 12 noon and is expected to be in effect until at least 6 p.m., resulting in delays and several cancellations.

Authorities on Monday closed Greece's iconic Corinth Canal, used mainly by commercial ships and pleasure craft, after a landslide caused by heavy rain in the area. Repairs are expected to take up to two weeks, significantly lengthening the journey of vessels which had been planning to use the shortcut.

Deputy Shipping Minister Nektarios Santorinios said on Friday that the environmental health of the Saronic Gulf off Athens has improved since last year. 

Speaking to Parliament during a discussion about the ecological consequences of the oil spill after the Agia Zoni II tanker sank off Salamina in September, he said the "situation is better than it was a year earlier."