PATRAS – It had a happy ending but until it did, there was shock and worry after a little girl said to be 4 or 5, in an inflatable unicorn floated out to sea and was rescued by the crew of a ferry boat.

The girl was at a beach in the town of Antirio on the Gulf of Corinth, luckily at a point where a giant bridge connects two land masses and has regular ferry passages as well.

The girl was swept out to the horror of her parents and others on the beach who were said to have scrambled immediately trying to save her and port officials were quickly called, who alerted the Captain of the ferry boat Salaminomachos.

“I was approaching the port of Antirio and I was notified by the Port Authority that a child, who I did not expect to be so small, had been swept away by the currents on a nearby beach, which is near the port pier,” Capt. Grigoris Karnesis told Greek City Times in Sydney.

The skipper soon saw her bobbing in the sea, petrified, and steered cautiously toward her, stopping far enough away so she could drift toward the stern, a ramp

“She was frozen from her fear, because the current was very strong. I put the ship in such a position so as not to affect the small buoy,” Karnesis said.

“I placed it in such a way that the ship was not affected by ripples, because if the buoy sank we would have serious problems. We approached it slowly and we were able to rescue the child,” he continued.

The captain added: “Fortunately, everything went well.” His crew made funny faces and joked with the girl to calm her and allay her fears before she was reunited with her parents, said The New York Post.