Lunch was late, lazy and long, as lunches tend to be in Greece, and at nearly 5pm we were still lingering over ouzos in a beachside taverna in the little Naxos port of Agia Anna. Glancing towards the fishing boats bobbing at their moorings beside the quay, I became aware of animated activity in the foreground. A cluster of 30 or more people were jostling for space, pointing cameras and mobiles down towards the water where snorkelling youngsters circled.

“They’re there to see the turtle,” our host told us. “She comes every day at this time.” Regular as clockwork in the past two summers, Alice, as she is known, puts in an appearance at 4.45pm to feast on what is discarded as fishermen clean squid before delivering them to the local restaurants. Sometimes a mate comes with her.

Crossing towards the quay we were soon rewarded with our own sighting of the lively loggerhead as she swam around and below her human friends, snapping at her scraps of food and occasionally breaking the surface with her head. It looked, I thought, rather like ET’s.

My efforts to capture her image on my iPhone were not a conspicuous success. The picture I am printing today was borrowed from the internet, on which can also be found some marvellous video footage of Alice at play. You Tube is particularly good, with nearly five minutes of her dodging and diving.

While you are on the internet, why not spend a moment looking at the wonderful website devoted to other animals on the island that we consider our home from home?

At naws.on-naxos.com you can find out all about the Naxos Animal Welfare Society and the magnificent work it performs in rescuing and rehoming some of the island’s neglected dogs and cats. I have mentioned its activities in this column more than once. A chord was struck with some readers, who occasionally ask me for news.

Oxford Mail:
Oliver

This summer brought a cheering development for us when Druna, the dog we ‘adopted’ — to the extent of paying for her food and vet’s bills — found an altogether ideal new home. The Rottweiler-cross was dumped post-puppyhood on proving not to be a true pedigree (some Greeks are fussy like that) and spent more than a year caged up in the Naws dog sanctuary in a rural location on the island. We visited her there when we could.

Other visitors were a German couple who were quickly smitten and decided to take her home with them to Leipzig. Since then, we have been sent videos of her romping amid wide open spaces in what is clearly a perfect locality for a fairly big dog. A backside firmly in the butter, you might say (if you had my vulgar taste in metaphors).

Druna’s departure left us with a vacancy, as it were, so last month on our latest visit to Naxos we called at the Naws sanctuary to pick a replacement. Our arrival coincided with that of a poor, starved animal whose plight perfectly illustrated the challenge faced by the society. Shaking and pitifully thin, with bones jutting from his fur, he had been found tied up at the entrance half an hour before. Despite vile treatment from humankind, he still managed a feeble wagging of his tail in our presence. I cried.

Other of the happy hounds pressing for attention around us had arrived, according to helper Maria, in just such an appalling condition. She was confident that the newcomer, as yet unnamed, would soon be thriving too.

Oxford Mail:
Zen

But which dog to adopt? Or rather dogs, for we were charged by Rosemarie’s mother Olive to select a dog for her to support too, the winsome puppy Bilbo, her current adoptee, now off to pastures new.

In the event, we selected, quite by chance from the cluster of 30 or more, two dogs who proved to be bosom buddies, as can be judged from a video of them together on the Naws website.

For Olive there is, appropriately, black-and-white Oliver. Having seen his picture (a blow-up of which she has now framed) she is delighted.

Naws says of him: “Oliver was found tied up, in the rain, waiting to be saved, fed and protected. It is obvious by his amputated tail and terrible condition that a hunter had no use of him any more and got rid of him. We are now trying to help him gain weight. He and his best friend, Zen, are trying to enjoy their stay with us, playing while they are waiting for a family to take care of them for the rest of their lives.”

For us there is — yes — the aforementioned Zen. Naws says: “She was found in an agricultural area, tied up with a cord. An animal lover could not just pass by her and decided to save her. So Zen is now with us. She was starved and her tail was probably not cut by a vet. She is friendly but still scared, although we hope we will be able to restore her faith in humans.”