WHEEL WATCH: Rowing with Cousin Julia
How a rowboat opened up a world of adventure for a Stonington boy and his ‘dumb old girl cousin’
A sketch by Brian Robbins of the rowboat his father built for him.
Aug. 3, 2026
By Brian Robbins
As I remember, I was rowing before I could ride a bike.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I had my own rowboat before I made the move from my old tricycle (red and battered from numerous adventures on the big ledge alongside our house) to a bicycle (a red Western Flyer, paid for by my brother Stevie, who was on an Antarctic research ship by then; he’d sent money home with a note: “Buy Bri a new bike”).
I’m guessing my folks didn’t have the money to buy me a bicycle themselves prior to that – but Pa had the talent (and the scrap wood) to build me a rowboat. Pa was a master of making magic happen out of little or nothing.
To be accurate, my rowboat was more of a scow than anything: flat-bottomed and square-ended, with no sheer of any sort to the sides, it might not have been very stylish, but it couldn’t have been any more stable. You could stand on the gunwale and it would hardly move.
Rather than oarlocks, Pa made wooden yokes to receive my oars – a design feature that saved me from losing an oarlock overboard.
It was a solid, steady little craft that opened up a whole world of adventure to me in Moose Island Cove.
Well, me and my dumb old girl cousin Julia. (Actually, I always said that as one word: “dumboldgirlcousin.”)
Julia’s folks were Harold and Joan Robbins, who lived over on the west end of the Green Head stretch at the head of the cove. Harold was a cousin to Pa, who always called him “ol’ John” ... I have no idea why. (Pa did a lot of things like that.)
When you’re a little boy, having to spend time with any girl – cousin or not – could seem like a horrible fate. But Julia wasn’t like what few other girls I’d been around were like.
She was funny and laughed at the same things I did. She made me laugh, in fact.
She wasn’t afraid to get dirty, muddy, or wet.
She could actually outrun me (I was so uncoordinated that any attempt at running very hard usually resulted in stumbling, falling, and taking at least one knee out of whatever pants I had on) but never made a big deal about it – and always slowed up if she got too far ahead.
“I’d act like it was no big deal and cast off; if she did show up (or yelled out my name as I was starting to row off), I’d roll my eyes and act like she was the most annoying dumboldgirlcousin anyone could ever have. The fact was, I loved her very much.”
But most of all, she was perfectly content to sit in my boat while I rowed us around Moose Island Cove.
And I was happy she was there ... but I couldn’t let on, of course.
When I’d be down on the wharf that Pa and my Uncle James shared, getting ready to go out for a row, I’d keep an eye out for Julia, hoping she’d see me bailing out the boat and come down to join me. I’d kill all the time I could, sneaking peaks to see if she was in sight.
If she wasn’t – and I’d run out of ways to kill time – I’d act like it was no big deal and cast off; if she did show up (or yelled out my name as I was starting to row off), I’d roll my eyes and act like she was the most annoying dumb-old-girl-cousin anyone could ever have.
The fact was, I loved her very much.
Still do, although we have not been for a row for a long, long time.
And she really can be annoying.
The wharf (nestled right in the crook of where the causeway over to Moose Island meets Green Head Road) was tidal; Pa, Uncle James, and some of the other fishermen in the cove would ground their boats out alongside of it to clean and paint their bottoms. That was my first lesson in paying attention to time and tide, although I don’t ever remember getting caught and not being able to get back in to the wharf.
My explorations in the outer part of the cove – over around Billings Diesel and poking out into the thoroughfare – would come later on, when I got a little older and I had a bigger boat to use. (Gramp Robbins’ outboard: I was told if I could start it with the pull cord, I could run it. That quest kept me busy off and on for a couple years.) During my rowing years, the adventures were kept to the area that extended from the Colwell Brothers’ big lobster pound over on the eastern shore of the cove up into the head of it, over by Pa and Uncle James’ wharf, and out along the Colwells’ smaller pound on the western shore that bordered the Moose Island causeway.
Robbins and his cousin Julia. Photo courtesy of Julia Trundy.
I had the marks in my head that Pa would use when he idled up into the cove to load on traps at the wharf at half-tide or better: lining the peak of the old building on the stone wharf off the shore below Nanny and Gramp’s house with the phone pole up by the road would keep you clear of the ledges up in the cove as you made your approach; once you got in close, you could swing over towards Pa and Uncle James’ wharf. Of course, I didn’t draw but a few inches, so I could stray off those marks as much as I wanted ... and scraping the bottom of my scow on a ledge wasn’t the end of the world – but I tried not to.
Sometimes there were logs or maybe an old barrel that had floated into the cove that I’d work at towing in on the beach.
I’m sure Julia and I would make up scenarios and pretend names for ourselves, although I don’t remember any story lines.
Now and then, there’d be a little roll from a wake big enough to make it up into the harbor – maybe a sardine carrier chugging through the thoroughfare with her belly full of herring – and I’d scurry to get in the lee of a ledge ... or put the bow of my little scow into it and ride it out.
And I remember times when a good northwest breeze made me work to get back in to the wharf.
But for the most part, we were simply rowing around the cove and just being – something that seems to be a great gift these days when you can remember to.
—Brian Robbins grew up in Stonington and now lives in Nobleboro, where writes his monthly “Wheel Watch” column for The Rising Tide.
