The story
The old skiff lay beneath clear water, its ribs making tidy stripes across the sand. I leaned over the dinghy to admire it and found a bass looking back from the space where the passenger seat should have been. It seemed comfortably settled.
I had been describing the wreck as abandoned. The fish appeared to disagree. It moved through the broken boards like a resident inspecting an unexpected visitor, then stopped in a shaft of sunlight with an air of considerable patience.
I paddled away without disturbing anything. In the notebook I changed abandoned skiff to occupied address. This was the most accurate correction I made all week, and the only one that did not require crossing out a claim about the size of a fish.
Sometimes the discovery is that you are the visitor.