We figure it’s been more than 35 years since we moored on the lovely Rhodes River — in a what we considered to be a “huge” houseboat (40 feet) with our three kids, Cliff’s parents, my mom and my sister. As you might imagine the place has changed. The YMCA camp is still there (one of the ways we figured out we were actually in the right place) and the little island where the kids had free reign to play is there too.
We’d been told that the island had eroded to nothing more than a likely spot to go aground — but that wasn’t the case. Maybe eroded a bit, but I think the vegetation is a lot more dense. I could swear that we could keep an eye on the kids anywhere on the island from our perch on top of the houseboat.
What we are most surprised about is how we ever got to this place all those years ago. The lyric “fools rush in” seems apt. We didn’t have any charts, were vaguely aware of red and green markers (which I have no recollection of seeing anyway), no depth finder….and no sense. The route to this scenic spot winds off the Chesapeake with just a narrow channel of navigable water. There are “high spots” in the channel — in fact, we nearly went aground as we were heading toward the island we remembered so fondly.
