Stingray Point- The Childhood Years

As kids, my cousin and I grew up hearing the story of how Stingray Point got its name.

The only thing was, we thought Captain John Smith had actually died 

and that his body was buried somewhere on the beach.

My cousin and I digging

We spent a lot of time digging holes 

hoping to find the Captain's skeleton. 

(we are were odd children).

A lot of our time was spent at Stingray Point during the summer.

It was the beach where all the locals swam.

All of my cousins went there.

We played silly games like pretending to be Clydesdales

running through the water

(this was years before Baywatch so we went with Clydesdales instead of Baywatch Babes, except I seriously doubt we would have pretended to be Baywatch Babes).

That's me in the striped bathing suit with my head cut off and my sister front and center

One year, a tank mysteriously appeared on the beach.

The adults determined it was probably something off a ship.

Of course, we decided it was off a ship that sank off the coast in a storm.

Probably a pirate ship.
Because, you know, pirate ships had oil tanks.

We loved using it as a dive platform
which means we jumped off of it into ankle or knee deep water
depending on the tide.
It was slippery and the parents were always worried we'd slip
and crack our head open.
Or maybe that was just our grandmother
(she was always cautioning us about doing things she was certain would crack our heads open).
As the tank rusted,
the worry was about slicing our leg open and getting tetanus.

 Really, it's a wonder we survived.