We’re on the island of Hydra once again. We never go anywhere else when we come to Greece and yet each time our experience of this tiny island is different.I came for the first time as a teenager – happy to be allowed out on my own. It was an opportunity to explorate in its true essence because there were no buses to take me anywhere, no tube to hop on to explore London’s lights and excitement – with my family and the island’s essence has never changed for me. It’s just amplified: more people (thankfully, it isn’t like Ibiza, where anything goes) more boats, more tourists, more expensive and yet it is immutable.

It used to be a serious party island with nightclubs, music and dancing. Now there are no places where live music is played. It’s at once lovely for the silence and sad that a once wild party island has grown older.

Unburdened by myths (unlike Crete and the Minotaur) or literary baggage (like Ithica in Homer’s Odyssey) Hydra, nevertheless, has inspired the creative types over the years (fans of Leonard Cohen will know what I mean); and, the island has its fair share of historical sites for the curious. You’re best to start off at the Historical Archive Museum of Hydra. For millennia Hydra existed in the background, until its contribution to the Greek War of Independence in 1821 shot it in to the prominence. Ships from Hydra, Psara and Spetses combined to eventually kick the Ottoman navy out of the eastern Aegean.

Our journey to get here was long and exhausting, starting at two in the morning with a taxi to the airport. The airport was mobbed. Four o’clock in the morning and there’s us eating breakfast, watching so many fellow travellers necking beers and prosecco. Troops of chubby bleached blonde women in silly hats and too-tight trousers doing their best to get into the spirit of the thing. Except it’s four a.m. A rowdy couple whose bag doesn’t fit the EasyJet guidance for cabin luggage have the energy to fight with the check-in staff. They get so worked up that the check-in staff, long suffering and tired and having seen it all before, deny them boarding. Somehow having such a thing happen for such an early fight is much worse than if they’d rocked up freshly pressed and wide eyed, following a decent night’s sleep. Maybe they wouldn’t have made such a fuss, maybe they’d’ve been less inclined to combat, if it had been later. Maybe…but probably not.

Watching the sun come up suddenly and blood red as we headed east at 37,000 feet we knew we would be on the island today, without a stopover in Athens, without delay.Without having to bully ourselves into believing that an evening in Athens would be exciting. Of course it would, but it’s not what we want.

We want Hydra, the warmth of the harbour’s silky stones, the steepness of its walkways and the noise of its church bells and tooting ferries, of its multi-tongued tourists and its wonderful people. We’re here late in the season and wonder at their intrepid kindness and patience after so many weeks of frantic service to their visitors and livelihoods.

Despite the early start and the late eventual arrival, and despite the seductive charms of lots of pillows and a bed someone else has made, we venture out. Ouzo (I’ve been drinking Ouzo since I was 12 and cannot remember how it tasted the first time. Probably like fire. Time has dulled the fire, you could say)and water,sometimes the local wines, the charming conversation of strangers interested to tell you about themselves and an old friend. She’s fascinated by writing and always wants to know how it is done. I equivocate, but I want to say it’s like walking except with words: you put one in front of the other and see where you end up. But she might take that description literally. There are already too many poor authors flooding the internet, stalking fame. Or maybe it’s just that they crave acknowledgement, but few of us is a Cavafy or Kazantzaki however hard we try.

The strangers we met that first night come originally from France, Switzerland and Germany. All of them live year round on the island, high up above the harbour with sunshine on their balconies through all the seasons. It’snot really an enclave because people integrate(Greek is the lingua franca, not English but I suspect the versatile Swiss speak French and German as well). The idea of retiring here as they have done, keeps bubbling up and when we ask the family, would you come they say yes. Maybe they would. It’s a good plan, so the strangers say.

But plans are for another day. This day is for getting through the daze of sleepiness, that tiredness creeping along in the wake of many hours of adrenalin-fueled excitement and schlepping. This day is for getting it together enough to make it out to the sea, getting into the sea and getting back out again. This day is for the sensuous anticipation of return to those crisp white pillows and the bed that someone else has made.

What is new? Nothing and all of it. We’ve spotted a new buzz of beehives grazing the stippled hillside. They sit halfway up on slender terraces to hold them in place in case they have cause to slide. In the early mornings across the amber dawns we hear an excessively keen cock crowing. He reminds us that we want to stay asleep a little longer. And once we manage to blur out his crows there is the tap-tap-tapping of a building project just below our room. The project is a grey stone house with a tidy pair of Roman arches and a soon to be completed pitched roof. The workers tap in regular rhythms, each nail-whacker managing different numbers of strikes with his hammer. They speak in broken English across several languages, but besides English we only recognise Albanian(some of the island’s earlier inhabitants, as far back as the 15^th century, came from Albania) and Greek.

Throughout the day we are treated to the whine and squeaks of a lonely dog and its token toy. The Huskey dog, out of place on a Greek island given how warm it usually gets, has pointy ears that touch at their peaks and white- rimmed eyes. The eyes and the tilted head implore us to entertain her every time we peer into the pen to check she’s got water. Her conversation, at first annoying, is repetitive enough to be somehow reassuring. We hear her above the wind and through the stillness of the air, the heat and the cool of night-time.

And the sea. Under strong winds its glorious bounce and embrace are sometimes too tight. When the wind drops the sea’s languid rise and fall seduces, tempting us ever further from shore, to ever further depths. We swim along the shore searching for an octopus and her garden, or out to the safety buoys. Beyond the buoys the sea taxis surge rapid and reckless between the port and the many bays along the island’s eastern coast. They go beyond occasionally, following pleasure cruisers and rented yachts that rely on motor power instead of the wind. Perhaps these sailors are afraid of losing control of direction and speed. Next stop Cyprus?

We climb hundreds of steps and more steps every day to reach our little cubby hole set high above the sea. Our window frames our view of the ocean and the roof of the dog’s house and through the window pass the echoes of the sea taxi engines and random voices in the night. They float along on the shh shh shh of a susurrous Saronic sea. It sounds softly slow, sensuous in the night.

And time eases its way beyond us and the sea is back to being full of serious boogy-woogy. Under winds intent on taking us all some place else, we strive to stay in place. No change. The crashing music of the breezes and currents. The waves’ white topped feathers run in too many directions for rhythm. Indigo and agitation contrasts with the bone-white and milk of the sea a few days ago. On one of those days we power-boated across the blue, churned waves to small coves for swimming and around empty islands for peering into caves, timid to get too close and risk the rocks. The excitement of it, unceasing adrenalin all day long, left us hung over and swaying. In the evening after our long climb up the many slopes, steps and ragged paths, I had to hold onto the kitchen counter to keep my balance. The lilt and drift was still there in the morning after, the grip of wild water dreams(of drowning and swimming…the Sea is fickle, one moment caressing you, the next trying to playfully dunk you) and exhaustion only slightly less taut.

Hydra is known for its many cats and a programme of neutering keeps the numbers in the port down. But here in Kamini, just along the coast there appears to be no such plan. We have frequent and regular visits from a small family: mother (not much more than a kitten herself), aunty (we reckon) and four tiny elastic kittens. They arrive whenever there’s a whisper of food scents, plaintive voices and tiny little pink mouths opening to show off white teeth like needles, lining their little pink jaws. One, Fledermouse (yes, mouse not maus), has ears larger than his mother’s and a coat of hillside shades, except the hillsides are the greys and drear of a cold-climated place rather than the ambers and terracottas of this island. They’re all in similar garb, some stripey like tabbies and some grey and black blends, and all with spotty tummies and striped stockings on their dainty legs. The kittens steal food from each others’ mouths and their mother washes them violently to compensate for rejecting them when they try to feed. Sometimes they play-fight, sometimes she brings them a mouse to share. They play writhing, twisting games and fall to rest without realising it. Like us.

From atop the final steps we watch the sunsets, always so sudden here. There is no lingering, just a solid martial descent below scar strewn clouds towards shimmering distance. The sea melts into coppers and aubergine stripes, soft and dragging. They melt across the sky slowly expanding into night. The sea we still hear now hushes to the land, bringing us all slowly to sleep.

On the way there we see bats, cats and kittens and smoke in lines of sullen purple. They cross the sun setting sky. It’s getting darker now and the bounce of the waves and the noise of the wind are slowly quietening. The bats keep the mosquitoes at bay and the cats hang around, less afraid and keener to settle. The kittens sing their mewling harmonies, the Fledermouse choir in full squeal and squeak. And Fledermouse’s little body is catching up with his enormous ears, and they appear diminished. Together, bats, cats and kittens and we watch the carbon-creased sea at dusk and see it soft and buttery at dawn. In between, it’s fine crosshatching shifts and twists the stream and stirs the shadowed blues, indigos and blacks. Turquoised and bleached white under a sea taxi’s urgent churn.

We’re watching the waves, searching for more strangers to talk to, pies and cakes to nibble, ouzo to sip. Now staying in town, we’ve no need to clamber up a gazillion steps or to forage bread and fish and vegetables to cook for lunch. Someone else will be doing that for us. It’s a lazy time we’re enjoying, a time of people-watching and of making a single beer last all afternoon, before sloping back to the room for a nap, another nap.

Shimmering hot, the warm air and sunshine wrap themselves around us cosy and comfortingin our little nest at the Hotel Kirki.We’ve been walking a lot, despite the heat. Some serious money is in evidence at Mandraki, the little port up the coast from Hydra port. It began a few years ago with the development of a snazzy resort: serried banks of sun loungers and parasols, a bar playing loud, obnoxious music and a boat to ferry the tourists from port to port. Now the little Mandraki taverna on the path from town has had a makeover. Glamour has come to Mandraki and you no longer weave your way through the taverna’s tables to reach the beach. I dare say it’s only a matter of time before glossy travel magazines catering to the nouveaux riche start running features on the island.

Lefteraki’s taverna boasts white suited chefs and wait staff, a new feeble-friendly walkway down to the beach bypasses the taverna’s tables. Snazzy loungers and umbrellas paired with little tables extend across an expanse of fresh grey gravel. Gone are the bees. The ancient metal boiler where they lived within its ample curves is now a decorative feature, complete with antique lifesaver ring. The food in Lefteraki’s is very good, a chic version of traditional Greek food enhanced with a variety of seafood exotica. Saganaki, in theory a slab of fried flour-dusted cheese, is at Lefteraki’s a sort of crispy blini. Served with a sweet jam, it is tasty but unexpected. More information about the island’s culinary treats can be found onThe Cuisine of Hydra. Try not to drool!

Being in Hydra port instead of out at Kamini has given us the chance to meet and observe some interesting people. In the hotel Kirkior ambling out on the quay, we’ve chatted with Serbians who believe Nato invaded Ukraine, and Armenians and Poles who believe Ukraine is still part of Russia. We spent a delightful half-evening with a brace of American ladies whose political opinions we never got to, swamped as our conversation was in all that we share, our curiosity and the joy of being engaged in the world around us.

The patience of the Hydriots who make these marvellous dynamics possible is impressive. After many months of annoying and often stingy tourists they are still so kind, patient and able to drift beyond the obnoxiousness( for example, rudeness to people who are trying to help them, not noticing people as they block the harbour) of many.

We sit in the harbour bars eating ice-cream or drinking Ouzo and we people-watch. Yacht people are the most entertaining. Clear winners in the people-watching stakes, they strut like pigeons and waft excesses of aftershave and perfume, leaving coughing nobodies like us choking in their wake. The yacht people, some no doubt on a break from their shiny high-rise apartments in Dubai, ooze smug, sublime pleasure in the opportunity for demonstrable wealth. They are like children fed on an unhealthy diet of advertising for expensive products, waving their bags of sweets around, but refusing to share. Their tanned crews bask in their own ooze of sublime pleasure in being paid a lot of money to have a working holiday and admire the often gorgeous ondeck views.

When Leonard Cohen, Charmian Clift and George Johnson were here in the sixties, the yacht people and tourists were just beginning to come to Hydra. Back then it was a four hour ferry from Piraeus followed to exciting conclusion into the harbour in a much smaller boat, often over choppy seas. The slow visitor invasion began following the setting of a successful film,Boy On The Dolphin, here. The film starred a 22 yearl old Sophia Loren. Once it was discovered that Hydra was cheap to live in, artists came, poets and writers too, mostly living on funds from family and relatives. The majority, those whose names we can’t remember, spent their time drinking, eating and having sex, as opportunity provided. Not much creative work was produced, except by those whose art mattered more than fleshly delights. It’s all in Peel Me A Lotus, Charmian Clift’s account of nine months of her life with her growing family here on the island. She talks about the increasing number of visitors, the derelict houses crawling back into the ground, the cats, the beauty, the whitewash and blue, and of course the sea. And nothing much has really changed. All that she describes is much as it is now; it’s just a matter of amplitude. Back then Hydriots could observe and quantify their visitors and today Hydra in high season is bursting at the seams, the visitors faceless and anonymous. Yet Hydra’s people are mostly kind and patient, generous and willing to share the grace of this magical place. For this we thank them.

The last two days of our stay were days of low cloud and mist, the torpid air sliding steaming hot beneath it. It’s a concoction of rain, for rain. Rain on the water, water in the air. The sky lies heavy, overcast, lethargic and lazy. Damp and soft the air resting on indolent bodies draped on the rocks beside an idling sea. We all step carefully along the rocks, some nimble, some slow, careful and cautious not to fall. Even someone we can see is agile as a local cat makes it to the water. Big splash. We swim crazy far or float toes up or stare down into the deep, snorkelled and goggled to watch the many fish.

Above the water the wind is shouty and jazzed, keen. On the shore we see the waves shatter and fray and we hear the sea’s many voices, cacaphonous as they slap at the rocks in some secret dance or unrecognised ritual. Wave -shaped whispers or sudden splashy shouts on a rising wind. No sign yet of the goose feathers floating on rising crests. But they are coming soon as the air begins to chill and the winds grow resolute. The summer is drawing to its close and the sea’s changing shapes tells us this. It’s time to go.