Bumpy rides

This may look idyllic but at two o'clock this morning when Jake and I were speeding across the straight in a tiny sea taxi, it felt like hell.  After a stomach churning 3 hour taxi ride from Piraeus, twisting through the Peloponnese, unsuccessfully trying to persuade the driver to either stop sending texts while whizzing round bends or to actually stop and send the texts, we were a bit wobbly of stomach and legs and I was surprised to still be in one piece. We got to Metochi without having realised just how hard the Meltemi was blowing but the wee boat dancing up and down alongside the rudimentary concrete jetty suggested it was 'hoolie' strength and I felt even sicker at the prospect of trying to get my 25 kilo dog aboard.  Jake was a star - at one point he had two legs on the boat and two on land with his middle doing a belly dance but we both managed to tumble in.  I then had to lie down and deliver myself to fate clasping my poor shivering hound's neck while we rocked, rolled and corkscrewed at great speed through the waves.  This has happened before, although not in the pitch black, and each time I have vowed to never make this journey again. And yet...

Two minutes off the boat, I would have been down on my hands and knees kissing the ground if there had been any chance of me being able to get up again but Jake was sniffing around, wagging his tail in recognition and ready to head off up the hill as if he'd just stepped out of his own front door. Dogs make great travel companions, no recriminations.