By common consent it was the most violent thunderstorm to have hit Naxos in living memory, and naturally we were there to witness it. I say naturally, because although we have been present on this delightful Greek island for no more than five or six weeks annually over 25 years, these visits have coincided with almost all of the crucial events in local life.

Among them were such causes for celebration as the victory of the Greek football team in Euro 2004, Eleni Paparizou’s success in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest and the arrival of the Olympic Torch on its way to the Athens games. By contrast, we shared in the sorrow caused by the sinking of the ferry Express Samina off the neighbouring island of Paros in September 2000, with the loss of 82 lives, a number of them Naxian.

In comparison with this the thunderstorm of May 15 was no more than a minor disaster. As far as I know there were no fatalities, human at any rate. But stock was lost, crops destroyed, property damaged, including ours in a minor way.

The storm began at around 12.30pm. Rosemarie and I had been at the south of the island, showing a friend over the ruins of a giant hotel that was being built in contravention of planning rules during the colonels’ days of power and which was abandoned when they were ousted in 1974.

My intention had been to return through the middle of the island; there was a rapid change of plan, though, when I saw black clouds gathering over the mountains which include, in Mount Zas, the highest peak in the Cyclades. I’d stick to the coast, where the sun still shone powerfully. (“And they are talking about rain!” a friend had said incredulously half an hour earlier, eyeing the azure blue sky.) Over cold beers in a bar beside Prokopios beach we noted the sudden appearance of more heavy black clouds over Paros. Still enjoying sunshine ourselves, we watched the spectacular display talking place six or seven miles away across the water. Lightning forked from the sky, sometimes two or three flashes at a time.

“They’re the ones getting the rain,” said the German waitress, to whom I had earlier expressed the opinion that we looked to be in for more than a shower.

Our turn was soon to come. As we lunched on stuffed zucchini at a favourite restaurant in nearby Agia Anna, a huge clap of thunder signalled the arrival of the storm almost overhead.

Torrential rain began at once and was to last, to everyone’s astonishment, for nearly three hours.

Unusually — or so it seemed to me — there was no wind accompanying the deluge. The gaily painted fishing boats in the harbour sat still in the water as rain lashed over them. Then, in a bizarre addition to the picture, two frog-suited divers, — aqualungs on their backs, harpoons in their hands — appeared among the vessels and plunged into the sea in pursuit, one supposed, of octopus.

By this time, water rushing from the hills behind had turned the main coast road into a river, rendering the sea and land almost indistinguishable. But the water was not deep enough to halt traffic. Although I would happily have stayed watching longer, after two hours we thought we had better return to see how things stood at home.

The journey took twice as long as usual. Having almost reached the village of Melanes, we found the road blocked by a fall of earth and stones from the sheer walls by its side. A JCB was already at work trying to clear a path, but it looked like being a long job. So it was back into town for the other road leading to the village.

Arrival at home was accompanied by the unpleasant sight of a garden retaining wall that had given way under the pressure of water. Behind, water, mud and stones still poured into the pool. It had turned a horrible deep brown. A few days later, when it was drained and refilled, more than an inch of mud covered the bottom The night of the rain, on a visit to a local bar, we discovered the extent of the damage elsewhere. While we had lunched, it seemed, the storm had been positioned directly over the village. Besides the torrential rain there was, for 45 minutes, a battering from gobstopper-size hailstones.

Vines and vegetable crops had been flattened. The owner of our local restaurant had lost two puppies, drowned in their kennel. A farmer who had bobbed off to sleep in a shed had woken up to find his car washed away in the flood.

All this, by the way, followed a period of very cold weather that had lasted into the beginning of May. Winter, in fact, had not started until well into January. People were still swimming at Christmas in temperatures up in the 20s.

As people everywhere on the island were saying: “Crazy weather.”