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You are here: Corfu Benitses guide Sights Shelter of tourist boats

Shelter of tourist boats (Marina) of Benitses was constructed in 2002 as an extension of the existing old port.
Around 1960, because the Benitses lived almost exclusively on fishing and the cultivation of citrus, it was imperative to have some protection for the fishing boats so the residents decided to build with their own forces a small port.

So at 1960 began the construction of the old port deck with the volunteer work of the residents and the poor means of that age, in the adjacent photograph we see moments from the work of the instruments then.
So the current Shelter of tourist boats was not contracted on a part of the beach, destroying the beach as some visitors think, but it is an extension of the old port by filling the sea and making a larger land area, in the port of Benitses two major sea fillings were taken place resulting loss of part of the picturesque landscape.
In the adjacent picture we see how Benitses was in 1965 when the sea reached up to the doors of houses and we can compare the picture with today.
Of course, the inevitable development has created needs that could not be fulfilled without such landfill, a major problem was that the road was passing in front of the houses, it was small and very dangerous especially for residents even for the contitions of the 60s, accidents have happened and those filling helped to the transfer of the road outside to eliminate those problems and accommodate better the growing traffic.

The first filling began in 1972 and covered the creek in the old port until where there is now the highway, the second was during the construction of the shelter and started in 2002 covering almost the entire area enclosed within the old port deck, we can see in adjacent photo the project of the shelter and the areas covered by the fillings, in red is the filling of 1972, in blue is the filling of 2002, and the position of the old deck appears in the project with green. Shelter of tourist boats started with the aim to attract tourist boats and by extension tourists and visitors with greater afford, offering very high Quality anchorage.

Unfortunately the project has stagnated somewhere, has not been completed yet for various reasons, mostly economic but also political and the worst of all is that infrastructures that were built first began to be destroyed.
Very logical, since the project has not been officialy delivered yet so no one can assume responsibility for maintenance and retention of it.
it has been almost left to its fate, we are very afraid that if and when the time comes for delivery to the municipality it will have almost nothing left except cement and breakwaters.
Fire hydrants, water supply valves, gauges, panels, electricity networks, networks for oil and many others would have been destroyed or stolen.

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Here we see the shelter as it is today, September 2011, it is actually almost ready, you can see in google earth is well.
The problem is that it offers nothing in the place, because quite simply there is none rensposible for this, neither the City local authorities nor the funny, nonexistent, unfair, incompetent, Sold, ridiculous and failed Greek state, nothing is clear and no one knows why and for Who was this project constructed!