One of the cleanest estuaries left on the coast
Willapa Bay is the water south and east of the Tokeland point. It is shallow, it is enormous, and roughly half of it drains to mudflat twice a day, which is exactly what oysters want. A serious share of the oysters eaten in the United States is grown here. It carried the name Shoalwater Bay first, given by the trader John Meares, and it earned that name honestly — the shoals are why the bar here has wrecked ships for two centuries and why the lighthouse at Cape Shoalwater mattered. The people who lived here long before either name took oysters, clams and salmon out of it and picked wild cranberries in the bogs behind it, which is still, more or less, the local economy. You do not do anything to a bay this size. You look at it, from the Tokeland pier or from the shoulder of Highway 105, and you time it — high water and low water here are two different landscapes, hours apart.
More things to do in Westport & Grayland
Twin Harbors State Park · Bottle Beach State Park · Fisherman's Boardwalk · Furford Cranberry Museum · Grayland Beach State Park · Grayland Community Hall