On the Peninsula’s Bay Side

Snag at Anchor on Willapa Bay

Snag at anchor on Willapa Bay

I never tire of looking out at Willapa Bay.  It is my first view of the world each morning and, often, my final view of the great outdoors in the evening.  Depending upon the tide and the time of year, we watch first light streak across the water, its rosy, golden glow heralding the sunrise to follow.  And at dusk, a paler version – the sunset on the Pacific reflected over on our side of the Peninsula.

There is always something happening on the bay.  Oyster dredges are out there year ‘round and in all kinds of weather.  ‘Round the clock, too.  Their bright lights can be seen way off yonder in the pitch of the night.  I never fail to wonder at how those oystermen can stand the cold and the wet, even in the middle of the icy winter blackness.

During storms, the wind lashes up the waves and the bay is covered with angry looking whitecaps –“white horses” my British friends call them.  That’s the most likely time for flotsam and jetsam to be washed up on shore.

Results of a good set

Willapa Bay Treasure

I remember being startled some years ago to see a large, perhaps inflated, rubber oyster glove poking out of the mud one morning as I walked out on the tide flats.  It looked for all the world like someone was trying to claw his way up from an untimely burial in the mud.  But… it was empty.  Shoes, or more accurately, one shoe is another eerie sight now and then.

For the last month or two, a casual (not very careful) glance out our east windows gives the impression that there is a man just offshore at the end our the lane.  But, no.  It’s a huge snag, apparently stuck in the mud and not intending to move on until the next big storm.  For many months it was to the north of us in front of our neighbor Carol’s.  She said it had arrived with a big spring storm and it wasn’t until our first nasty wind in November that it uprooted and came our way.

There are many stories from the early days of Oysterville about boats breaking loose from their moorings in front of town and the brave (or foolhardy, depending upon your viewpoint) men of the village taking out a rowboat in hot pursuit.  Last night at our Friday gathering, Tucker spoke about the West Coast Oyster Company’s plunger, Vivian, that broke from her Oysterville anchorage and headed for the open sea during one violent storm in the early 1900s.

The Vivian

The Vivian

DeWitt Stoner and Anton Nelson put out in a dinghy trying to intercept her, but they swamped and capsized in the tossing waves, and only the desperation try by a rescue party in another boat saved them from drowning.  It was the Vivian’s final voyage; she wrecked on Grassy Island just off Leadbetter Point.

Willapa Bay – a never-ending source of nostalgia and excitement!  Which reminds me, the Oysterville Regatta date for next summer has already been set.  It will be Labor Day weekend – not ideal for landlubbers, perhaps, but it’s the weekend of the best tides at the most opportune times.  We’ve marked our calendars.

In the meantime, we’ll be keeping a sharp lookout to the east.  No telling what will come in or go out as the tide ebbs and flows

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