Normandy Park

Most of the southern shoreline of King County between Seattle and Federal Way is heavily developed and there is little natural shoreline left, but there are still some reaches that haven't been completely lost to bulkheads and lawns. Marine View Park, just north of Des Moines, is a nice beach at the bottom of a nice walk and a big stair tower.

I was impressed by the amount of wood on the beach. One argument is that logs tend to concentrate on those shorelines that aren't armored, since the wide high tide berm is conducive to the stranding of logs (and bulkheaded shorelines make this difficult). So maybe all the wood that normally would have been spread over the 30+ miles of beach between Seattle and Tacoma is right here!

Broad Spit

Dabob Bay is one of those few remaining places on Puget Sound where the forest still seems to dominate the landscape. There are homes and a few oyster operations, and the forest is certainly not original, but there's something special here that's been lost in other places.

We walked down to Broad Spit through fog, drizzle, ferns, and big trees (and bigger stumps). The recurved spit is fed from the bluffs to south and shelters a small lagoon. The shore is littered with the remains of decaying timber oyster? rafts.

Both here and later, when out at North and South spits (farther north into Tarboo Bay), there were hints that maybe the spits had evolved over time. Spits form, but as sediment accumulates and the shape of the shoreline changes, new spits form. At Broad Spit, this may have allowed a small spit or spits to form on the north side, in the lee of the main spit. At the northern location, it looks like North Spit formed first and South Spit formed later, relegating the former to relic status.

We didn't get over to Long Spit, on the east side of the bay, nor to the spectacular bluffs and landslides that feed it. Maybe next trip - maybe from a boat on a sunny day?