Alone in the Blue: A Chef Dives for Trash Off Mallorca's Waters and Discovers Curiosities

A Morning Like Anyone Else — Yet Not

At 7:30 a.m., when the cafés along the coast still smell of hot coffee and the fishermen check their nets, Kamil puts on his old wetsuit. He is simply called "Kamilo" here. He can cook well – at the small Max Garden in Palmanova he whips up tacos and wok dishes from 1 p.m. – but his second job he does alone, with a fin and a snorkel.

Without a Bottle, With a Buoy

He dives freely. No oxygen bottle. A floating buoy is the only visible signal on the water. "I stay about a minute to a minute and a half underwater," he says, as we sit on a shady park bench at the harbor. Then it goes down, sometimes to 30 meters. Careful, he says. Always careful. One is alone down there.

The wetsuit protects against jellyfish and cold. In winter he brings a thermos with tea. You look for fish, but also for cans. For phones. For what someone lost before a storm.

More Trash Than Treasures — But Then Again

In seven years on the island, Kamil estimates he has recovered several tons of junk. "Around 3,000 kilos," he says. Much is banal: plastic, cans, old fishing line. But again and again curious things surface. Apple Watches, iPhones, sometimes money in a plastic bag. He tries to find the owners – Facebook groups often help. He has returned over a hundred items this way.

One find that stuck: an old can in which an octopus had found a home. Another time he pulled a firearm from the sand and handed it over to the Guardia Civil. That brought not only questions but also respect.

The Reward Is Wild and Small

Materially he won't get rich. What matters is the closeness to the sea: a seahorse in a seagrass bed, a large manta ray gliding by, or an unusual sea snail that biologists say is rare. He films a lot – more than 90 vlogs are on his channel. The clips are raw, honest and sometimes funny: You can see the cook, after a long restaurant shift, with wet hair, jumping into the water.

"I want to give something back," says Kamil. "The island has given me a home. The sea has given me moments." He has completed a freediving course (Level One). Legally everything is in order. And yet the worry remains: more and more trash, fewer and fewer clean spots.

A Life Between the Stove and the Waves

Born in Sopot, trained in Gdynia, a few years in Britain — and now Calvià. By day he works at the stove, by night he dives. His wish list is short: carbon fins would be nice. And perhaps more people who pitch in.

At the end of the conversation he looks at the water once more. The buoy rocks gently. Out there lies work, trouble and beauty at once. He fetches bottles, sends messages to owners, drinks his tea. And tomorrow morning? Then he is back out in the blue.