Unplugged

About 20 miles east of our home port of Newport, RI there is a cove that has over the years become one of our favorite summer anchorages. Tarpaulin Cove is on the southwest side of Naushon Island in the Elizabeth Islands. To the north of the islands lies Buzzard’s Bay while to the south is Vineyard Sound. Across from Tarpaulin Cove you can see Martha’s Vineyard with its white sand beaches, scrubby oaks and sea grape thick on the shore. And, of course, the beautiful summer cottages that would be called mansions anywhere else. But Tarpaulin Cove is different. It has a wide crescent of beach backed by thickets, a smart little lighthouse on the bluff to the south, a weathered old farmhouse and barn and not much else. In the middle of the crescent, a tower has been erected where osprey nest and rear their young. At dawn or dusk deer will browse along the beach without much of a care in the world. On summer days, especially over weekends, the cove fills up with day trippers who come to enjoy the wildness of the beach and the solitude. But at night, most motor back to their homes and leave us alone to ride on our anchor and watch the stars emerge from the long twilight. Tarpaulin Cove is just far enough from the Vineyard and the mainland to have very marginal cell service, so we can shut off our phones without any sense of guilt. And, TV reception is lousy, so if we need entertainment we can read, play music or battle it out on the backgammon board. The water in the cove is crystal clear, so a morning wake-up swim is a pleasure and if you are a skinny dipper there will be no one else around to notice. In summer Tarpauin Cove is a sanctuary for us where we can unplug, tune out and listen to the cicadas making their summer racket undisturbed.