Grays Harbor

Map of Grays Harbor. Grays Harbor is an estuary bay located 72 kilometers north of the mouth of the Columbia River in the southwest Pacific coast of Washington state in the United States of America. Grays Harbor is more specifically a river, and was formed at the end of the last glacial epoch, when sea level rise flooded the Chehalis River.

The bay is 24 km long and 18 km wide. The Chehalis River flows into its eastern part, where the city of Aberdeen is located, with the city of Hoquiam immediately to its northwest, along the coast of the bay. In addition to the Chehalis, many smaller rivers and small streams flow into Grays Harbor, such as the Humptulips River. A pair of narrow and slightly rugged peninsulas separate it from the Pacific Ocean, where it empties through an opening approximately 3 kilometers wide. The northern peninsula, which is largely occupied by the community of Ocean Shores, ends up in the so-called Point Brown. The opposite point at the mouth of the bay is Point Chehalis, at the end of the southern peninsula, in which is located the city of Westport.

Grays Harbor is named after Captain Robert Gray who discovered it on May 7, 1792 in the course of his fur trade trips along the Pacific North American coast. Grays called the bay "Bullfinch Harbor," but later renamed Captain George Vancouver, whose contemporary explorations of the region-the ships of the two captains had met at sea only a few days earlier-were well-known by then, while Gray's travels were not. Grays Harbor was the name that was consolidated. A few days later, on May 11, Gray found a navigable channel on the Columbia River estuary and sailed through it, becoming the first white man known to have sailed through its waters.

Coordinates: 46 ° 56'27 "N 124 ° 2'45" W / 46.94083, -124.04583

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