Chapter Five

Day Three, What Next

By the time Ray woke and got up for a cup of tea, Dona was already sat in the in the dining room looking at the thing in the middle of the coffee table.

"It wasn't a dream then" he said looking at the SPAR carrier bag in the middle of the coffee table.

"Should we just throw it back in the sea then" enquired Dona.

"I don't know what to do with it" admitted Ray "do you want any toast"

"Can we at least move it out of the way then" asked Dona.

Ray took the artifact and locked in the boot of the car, he then came back in, made a pot of tea and a big pile of toast. Which they had with butter and strawberry jam.

They then went over what they had discussed the previous night and still none of it made any sense whatsoever. They even made a list of pros and cons but it was useless as they had no idea what they were dealing with and it eventually got ripped up and thrown in the bin. The one thing they did agree on, was to keep it as their secret.

They went out into the garden to sit in the sun for a while but Ray could not settle, he could not get the thing out of his head and kept pacing up and down. Dona tried to get him to settle down but it was no good, so she suggested they get on with the holiday as if nothing had happened and go for a drive.

Dona made up the obligatory picnic, put it in the cool box with a bottle of frozen water and took it out to the car. She came back in looking worried again, seeing it in the boot had brought it all back into her head. The cool box had been placed on the back seat and not in the boot next to it.

Trying to forget about the problem for a while they set off, they drove off the island and headed towards Royan, the big town of the area. They parked up by the ferry terminal and had a very short walk. Then they sat in the sun watched the ferry leaving to cross the the Gironde. The Gironde is the name of the estuary formed by the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers after their confluence. The ferry is used as a short cut on the way Bordeaux

Just around the corner from the ferry is a lovely little cove, filled with some of the many fishing machines seen along the Atlantic coast, called Pêche au carrelet (Fishing for plaice). These things look like wooden back garden sheds but up in the air on four or more long wooden legs driven into the seabed. Then imagine a wooden crane arm sticking out the front of the shed with a square net hanging from the end and you have it.

From there, they headed back along the coast in the general direction of the island, sticking to the sea front whenever possible. A bit further along the coast they stopped off at another lovely little cove and went for a plodge in the Bay of Biscay. It was very hot, better than they had ever expected the weather would be but as good we hoped it would be in September. Very nice for walking on the beach and plodging in the sea.

Eventually they passed through the beach resort at La Palmyre and carried on to a lighthouse on the end of the peninsular. There are quite a few lighthouses in the area, there was another large one out to sea.

All of this was very interesting and usually would have held their attention all day but today was different.

Ray drove to a seclude beach under the large bridge that would take them off the peninsular, and parked up. From the beach they could also see the longer bridge to the island and their accommodation. Sat on the beach Ray said "this is eating at me, I want to see what we can do with this thing. Lets see if we can jump somewhere, have a quick look and come straight back here. Just to see if we can do it again"
"Don't be silly" said Dona
"It's not silly, we have to see if it will work again" pleaded Ray
"It is silly, don't be a fool Ray, how would we get back here to the car, walk the ten miles from the apartment, and by the way I agree with you, we have to see what it will do" said Dona.
"Derr, what a fool I am, I do love you, wow, that twice in two days I've said that, lets get back to the apartment and give it a go, you did put the address book in the suitcase, didn't you?" asked Ray
"Yes I did, let's get going" said Dona excitedly.

On the ten mile drive back they discussed where they should try for and what they should do, when they got there, there were so many things to take into consideration. They also needed to be better prepared this time, clothing, money and anything else they could think of.