Cow Point

This gift was bestowed upon us after a thunderstorm earlier this week. There were two rainbows, although the second one doesn't show up well (or at all) in this picture. The pot of gold is a place called Cow Point, although when seen with the naked eye that evening, the pot of gold for both rainbows was Gwynn's Island, which is a little further back.

Cow Point is a small beach at the mouth of our creek. Although privately owned, it used to be so popular you'd have thought it was public. Boaters flocked here, whether as a destination or just as a place to take a break.

As a kid I had a rowboat that I treasured more than an adult would a car. This boat gave me the freedom to go anywhere I wanted provided my arms didn't give out. They never did. I could be gone for a day (and never be missed by my mother, may I also add).

One summer, my City Cousins came for a visit. I decided it would be a great idea to go camping on Cow Point, and we'd go via rowboat. I would now like to press pause and point out the many aspects of this scheme that should have prevented us from going:

1. Cow Point is not a public campground. It is someone's property. We never knew who that person was, making it even more uncomfortable if they found four unchaperoned children sprawled out on their beach..in the middle of the night.
2. When I say camping, what I mean is we would take some blankets and sleep on the sand the entire night. No tent, no protection, no nothing.
3. My cousins' parents, also known as my aunt and uncle, were both doctors and not inclined to say, "Sure. You youngsters load up a rowboat, sleep outside on someone else's property with nothing but blankets and no possible way to communicate with us here in the event of an emergency, such as there are so many mosquitoes at Cow Point that you have just contracted malaria."

By some miracle (?) both sets of parents decided it was OK for us to go through with our adventure. We loaded the rowboat, and the four of us went to Cow Point. All we had was a few blankets and...I don't remember anything else. The End.

No, the one other thing I remember is in spite of all my clever scheming and attention to details, such as we were sleeping unprotected outside on someone else's property approximately 20 minutes from home by rowboat, I did overlook one thing.

The next morning when we woke up, the tide had gone out. Way, way out. The lowest tide ever recorded. Our boat, now sitting high and dry on the beach, was approximately WAY TOO FAR from the water.

I remember the Virginia Marine Patrol helping us get the boat back into the water, but I don't remember much else. The End.

No, one more thing. Can any of you parents imagine sending four children off into a rowboat with no cell phone, no possible way to communicate, on someone else's property, in the heat of summer, with mosquitoes the size of vultures and the possibility that some crazy lunatic could have showed up and absconded with everyone?

Me either, but it sure was fun.