Piner Point

Piner Point, at the south end of Maury Island, is a beautiful stretch of undeveloped shoreline, with gradually eroding bluffs and trees hanging across the beach. Just around the corner to the northeast, the beach briefly widens to form a sandy backshore (in front of a seawall). This is a pattern observed in many places on the Sound and is probably related to the fact the change in shoreline orientation results in a decrease in the potential rate of longshore transport and accretion occurs. The beach then continues north along a shoreline characterized by high bluffs and lots of gravel (a point important to both the industrial history and the modern politics of this island).

One of the more interesting recent seawalls on Puget Sound can be seen in the lower picture - a wall designed to allow sediment to be artificially fed to the beach.