A colleague asked yesterday afternoon if I would switch work schedules today. She had a day shift with a trip to Wachapreague on the Eastern Shore. But I had work late Monday night, Tuesday night and I knew I would have a late shift on Thursday. I was tired. I almost said "no." A day on the water between the barrier islands? Sure, I'll switch.
We visited Wachapreague Inlet, a narrow stretch of open water between the north end of Parramore Island and the southern end of Cedar Island. In between the two is a sandy shoal, above and below.
Below is the inlet, Parramore to right and the shoal to the left. I was surprised to find the entrance so narrow, but very glad to have seen it as I hope to sail Spartina through there some day when I complete the Delmarva circumnavigation.
And just for the record, there were a couple of science types on board. Looking out over the wetlands they talked about spartina, the cord grass in the marshes. They pronounced the word with a long "I". So repeat after me.....spar-TI-na. It was so nice to hear someone other than myself pronounce it that way. Maybe I'm not wrong about the name of my boat after all.
What a great afternoon on the water. And I almost said no. What was I thinking?
2 comments:
Steve-
That whole pronunciation thing cracks me up. I work with botanists who also have the "in" way of saying latin names. While I agree that it is nice to know the right name, and pronouncing it the right way is good, but they can take it too far! It's not like fishing where I call it a minnow and you call is a bait fish and scientist calls it Phoxinus... as long as we all know what we're talking about that's the main thing. :)
-Bruce
Agreed. I'm sticking with the long "I" version. Nice blog you have there! steve
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