CHAPTER FIVE
Chrissi Is/and
About 40 minutes later it was, and David made sure we were the first ones off. Then, for a few moments, that sense of urgency returned. David quickly tied me to some stone thing and dashed back aboard for the bags. I soon understood why: our boat had been the first to arrive and had to leave the tiny jetty to allow the other 2 to dock. All 3 boats I had seen earlier were coming to this place.
Finally everything and everybody were off the boat and David left 2 of the bags where he had dumped them and set off with me.
Unfortunately I did not share David's enthusiastic mood since I was still suffering from the effects of my first ever sea voyage! I was, however, still able to take in some dramatically different aspects of my new surroundings.
First of all, at the end of the jetty we stepped onto a beach. But it was not the soft sand I had come to love - this was a gritty sort of sand that stuck in the pads of my paws. We soon moved off this beach and headed away from the sea. Now the sand was soft - very soft! Softer than I had ever known. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there was sand EVERYWHERE!!
We went up and down small hills of sand! There were spiky trees all around, growing in the sand and they all looked very, very old - older in fact than the oldest olive trees I had seen. That meant these trees must have been more than 500 years old!
After some time, just as I was wondering when we would come to a road, we scrambled over another of these sand hills and there was the sea again! It was not the same sea as where we started from, I knew that - it smelt different. I was confused!
Before I had a chance to get things clear in my mind I had a bigger shock. We walked up to a funny little house made of fabric and there was Beverley?! What was she doing there? She was delighted to see us both and while she and David were talking I started to think a bit.
So this was Chrissi Island. I remembered David saying something to me about it. I also made the connection between Beverley's little fabric house and the one that David had erected, rather quickly I thought, from things he took out of a bag. He had put it up just outside the front door of our house and had made a big fuss over it at the time. He had invited me inside with him and I obeyed out of habit, but I could not see it was anything to get excited over!
Well, what a strange place? No roads - anywhere - which meant no traffic! It was just one huge beach. My first impression was that I could easily get to like it there.
After sometime David got up, attached my lead again and off we went. We had not gone more than a few meters when I spotted his tent? So I was right - this was where he had come when he had left me with Liz. And this was to be our new home? Surely not? The only people I had seen so far, apart from the locals who worked on the boats and Beverley, were those who had come over with us on the ferries and looked like they were only there for the day?
But, sure enough, as we got nearer I recognized some more of David's things. When he opened the door of the tent I could see his sleeping-bag. <