THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 23, 1995 TAG: 9505240061
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MOM, I'M BORED
SOURCE: SHERRIE BOYER
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
WE DISCOVERED a marvelous beach the other day, and all for the want of strawberry picking.
You see, it was the strawberries we wanted most, but as the weekend promised such lovely weather, a beach outing made perfect sense. Coupled with the strawberries, of course.
We landed at Little Island Park in Virginia Beach, a beautiful beach with roaring surf, soft sand, developed enough with restrooms and a pier, and wildly natural against the dunes. But it is not an island. Rather it is a narrow spit of land south of Sandbridge and north of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
It was a magical afternoon. We skipped across the narrow dune from the car with a tiny cooler and a few towels. Reached the top and beheld a sparkling ocean.
Allio, 6, slipped off her shoes and danced to the water line. Maddie, 4, rolled in the sand. And Sam, 2, took one long look at the waves, turned his back on the ocean and demanded food.
We searched for shells and found dozens of sand crabs, a little crablike thing that doesn't bite but makes a super instant pet you must leave behind.
We also saw pelicans up high (we think). We watched tiny clams stand on end and then wiggle themselves back into the wet sand, a truly amazing glimpse of one species' survival. Allio found sand dollars, a broken conch shell and three different crabs - blue, fiddler and sand - all alive.
Tom dug the children his usual fortress, a shallow hole in the wet sand, protected from the occasional long-reaching wave by a wall of sand nearly a foot high. In his little ``pool,'' Sam splashed by the ocean, no longer afraid, until finally he was ready to walk into waves up to his waist, holding our hands.
We left well after 5 p.m., the children as well coated with sand as a chicken leg is with bread crumbs. The breeze had cooled from the afternoon heat, and the girls carried heavy red buckets filled with seashells. Walking up the path from the beach to the car, the shells rattling in the bucket with every bang against her little legs, Allio summed up our adventure.
``I had a GREAT day at the beach,'' she said, sounding a little like Tony the Tiger promoting a box of cereal. ``And I'm not even whining while we're leaving. That's because I had a GREAT day at the beach.''
On the way home, we stopped at the first berry patch by the roadside and in 15 minutes filled two large cardboard boxes with the fruit.
We wished for a camera for 2-year-old Sam, poised with a strawberry larger than his fist, his little face dripping red juice from a berry mustache that encircled his mouth like a clown's painted grin.
Should you head to this area for beach or berries, you'll find the other adventure not more than a few minutes away. Just pick the berries last, not first. As ripe as a berry will be when you pick it, it will be all the more over ripe from an afternoon in the trunk.
There are several ways to head southeast toward the beaches of Sandbridge. But one easy route could be: Route 44 to South Birdneck Road. Take a right on General Booth Boulevard (Route 149) and follow it awhile. Make a left on Princess Anne Road at Nimmo United Methodist Church. Turn left on Sandbridge Road (Route 629).
In Sandbridge, there are signs to Little Island. Turn right on Sandpiper Road and follow it just over 3 miles. Little Island's first parking lot is on the left. Summer parking rates are $3/car weekdays and $4/car weekends.
There is a snack bar, several picnic pavilions and tables, a playground, shower heads by the restroom for rinsing off some of the sand, lifeguards in summer, a pier for views or fishing, and separate areas for surfing or swimming.
You can even fish for shark from the beach - but not while everyone's in the water. This is an evening adventure.
The pier is open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. April-October. Tickets are $2/person. Children under 9 admitted free with adult. Fishermen are limited to two poles and one crab pot/person.
The wooden ramp to the pier is rather bridgelike. Children will enjoy romping across it, and you can all stand for free, parallel with the shoreline, without passing the ticket fence. That may be enough for the littlest children. It is a marvelous view, of kites at eye level and children splashing far below. For more information, call 426-7200. by CNB