"A marshy place across"

An early autumn getaway to the barrier island off the Maryland Eastern Shore – Assateague Island, named by the Native Americans for "a marshy place across."We motored down through driving rain, and our first foray onto the beach was cut short by a squall blowing, dramatically, across from the mainland.A quick retreat to the town of Berlin (stress on the first syllable) and the Victorian Hotel Atlantic.   Sunday lived up to its name. The Atlantic Ocean unbelievably warm for one used to the bone numbing current off the Cape Town coast . The sunshine brought out Assateague Island's famous feral horses – legend has it they were originally survivors of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon. Reclaimed by nature.