A distinguished local who cannot be named said to me that he/she thought that the extreme narrowing of the beach at the Havana/Mango point was a result of construction work there - extensions to Mango and Delfino Blu.
I could not see how this could happen, but many of us remember the wide beach there, the football pitch below Havana, even the cabana on the beach. The beach is not (to my recollection) significantly narrower anywhere else, and was almost visibly widening at the other ends this autumn.
So I've been pondering this. Why would the tides attack this sector more than the others? Variations in the tidal drift could perhaps do it, and that was the theory presented to me. But we would expect those to be random and on average cause a small coming and going. What we are seeing is consistent erosion in one "hot spot." What mechanism could consistently produce this effect?
The beach, as we all know, at Agios Stefanos is very flat, with a low tidal range. Low points on the land side of the beach will be more vulnerable to inundation. Even a 0.5 centimeter lowering of a region could cause more aggressive tidal influx and hence more erosion.
Concrete weighs a lot. The geology there is sandstone. I'm not a geologist, but I can imagine that sandstone may be subject to compression. Is it possible that several tons of concrete close to the beach could be lowering the beach level just enough to permit attack?
If anybody knows a geologist or structural engineer, please pose this question. Meanwhile, I will send it to New Scientist - that's a free way of getting expert advice.
Should this theory be correct, that sector of the beach will not recover. It may be rubbish, of course. But there has to be a rational explanation.