Ina Pavlova feels very lucky that her bag, containing €2,000, was returned intact after she left it on the Gozo Channel ferry.

When Ina Pavlova reached for her bag containing more than €2,000 in cash and a brand new iPad, her heart missed a beat.

She had left it at the cafeteria on the ferry following an important meeting in Gozo on Wednesday.

“I only realised it was missing at about 2.30pm when we were close to Madliena and I needed something from the bag. I was horrified. We immediately turned the car around and started calling the Gozo Channel company like crazy. When we finally reached the terminal, the ship we had been on was already in Mġarr,” the 30-year-old who lives in Malta told this newspaper.

Ms Pavlova was accompanied by her business partner, Garett Zammit, who kept reassuring her all would be fine. Sure enough, a company official contacted the ferry and was informed that someone had found a bag.

“But we didn’t know if it was empty and, after waiting anxiously for about 30 minutes for the boat to return, we sprinted aboard,” she said.

When a Gozo Channel employee handed her the bag she realised it still contained all the important documents, the brand new iPad and the hefty sum.

The employee would not accept the money token Ms Pavlova offered to show her gratitude and ran off shyly. “I really wanted to run after him. He made me so happy and his act of kindness made me cry with joy. I feel very lucky. With all the robberies we are hearing about, this incident uplifted my spirits,” she added.

It was only yesterday that she got to know the name of the man who returned her bag untouched after sharing her story. “It was only fair,” Carmel Buttigieg said when contacted, lost for words. He had come across the bag in the cafeteria.

The 56-year-old seaman has been working on the ferry for about 30 years and it was not the first time he found lost things which he took to the police station when they remained unclaimed.

He said Ms Pavlova’s smile and reaction when he returned the bag was “enough”.

With all the robberies we are hearing about, this incident uplifted my spirits

Ms Pavlova’s “incredible story” sent positive ripples on Facebook and timesofmalta.com. Some social media users branded the episode as “only in Malta”, a term usually used to complain about negative experiences.

One of Mr Buttigieg’s three daughters, Silvianne, 26, said she was “impressed” at the positive feedback. “Returning objects to the owner is the obvious thing to do. That is how we were brought up,” she told this newspaper.

Ms Pavlova wants to reward Mr Buttigieg’s act of kindness. Although she does not yet know how to repay him, she has made it a point to inform the company about his good deed.