Dutch Island trip

As threatened promised, here's what we did Sunday. For many years J's family has made a day trip to Dutch Island but this was the first time for Ameranth and me. One of his brothers lives in FL and brings his boat up every year when they come to visit, usually around the Fourth. The island trip is often done during the week, and we are not around. Last year J went out, but I didn't, probably because we had the two devil dogs with us.

As I said, J's family grew up with a boat and had visited the different small islands in the area many times, so he was excited about getting the chance to revisit one. There are ruins of Fort Greble near the center of the island so he, his sister Trish and a couple of nephews hiked in. The nephews went back after J and Trish assured them they would be fine returning by themselves.

No surprise, they got lost. I think I may have mentioned J is directionally challenged, and I've been told the sun was overhead and of no use for navigation. Ha. They milled about for a bit, then headed downhill towards the shore, any shore, coming out quite a bit away from the camp. Staying by the water, they circled back, and the nephews eventually found them, guiding them back to civilization and a beer.

J told me the island was around 4 miles long- after I saw it, I checked Google- just under one mile long, honey. Around 100 acres. But it is lovely, and the family had staked a claim to a little cove just behind the lighthouse at the southern tip.

We drove down to a beach just across from this end, and waited for a pickup, after meeting two nieces, a nephew-to-be and their dog, Henry. It was fun going down there because we lived on that road before moving to Maine, and Ameranth remembered walking down to swimming lessons. Although she was just 6 when we moved, I'm not surprised she remembered the walk- it was at least 1/2 mile, (I'm being conservative, since I mocked J, but I think it was closer to a mile) and uphill both ways. No, really, the road goes up a long slope, then down steeply to the shore.  Sectaurs would be in an old-fashioned heavy stroller, and I seriously worried about losing control and tumbling down that last bit.

That's the bridge to Jamestown, a much bigger island, in the background. This beach is where the URI Bay Campus is located and this is their dock:

 There is a little beach to the north which has a sandy bottom, and that is where the kids had their lessons. So they weren't dealing with a slippery rocky bottom, just cold salt water, tides and waves. (When they started lessons at the lake in Maine, they wanted to know when the tide changed) J insists that the water in Groton, CT where he learned to swim is much colder than the water in the bay here. 

Anyway, after a looong wait in the broiling sun, our transportation showed up and we all got on board without much fuss, even Anna and me. A zippy ride over and we disembarked just as well.

We could only stay a little while, since we were double-booked and had to get to my side of the family for a relaxing end to the day.  I don't know what kind of boat the FL brother-in-law has- it's not huge- but the RI b-i-l has a Boston Whaler and man, that ride is a lot bumpier! I'm not sure why Boston Whaler drivers seem to feel that they have to speed directly across any waves or chop, but we got back to shore extremely quickly and didn't bounce overboard as we feared.

All in all, it was a very nice weekend, beautiful weather and the extreme heat wasn't so bad with a shore breeze.