Waves and seafood come crashing in Westport

Westport’s Fresh Catch hosted the 3rd Annual Storms & Seafood event from Jan. 9-13 at several venues throughout the city including LOGE Westport, the Westport Maritime Museum, the Westport Marina, Brady’s Oyster and Merino’s Seafood.

Lookie loos and professional photographers alike jostled shoulder-to-shoulder for the best vantage points on the Westport Observation Tower and lined the beach to capture photos and video of the thunderous, rolling, crashing waves. Without a winter storm as an escort, the waves weren’t as high as they could have been. From Westport, the pounding the Ocean Shores beaches took was clearly visible.

Storms & Seafood activities included a poetry reading by local fisher poet Jon Branshaw, a presentation about king tides, discussions about commercial fishing, and seafood supply and sustainability, an oyster shucking demonstration and a crab shaking class. Anyone attending the festivities had the opportunity to purchase a $5 five-day event “passport” for a self-guided tour that included the opportunity to earn a Westport’s Fresh Catch swag bag by accumulating requisite passport stamps at 14 restaurants, five markets and three museums.

Deanna Frost, Beth Swanson and Christine Maria traveled from Lacey for the third year in a row. The trio planned to spend the entire weekend in Westport and accumulate all of the passport stamps.

“We’re doing Storms and Seafood, we’re clam digging, and we went out on the Ultimate (48-foot chartered fishing vessel) and went crabbing,” Frost said. “This is our third annual.”

Foot traffic varied throughout the days and evenings and event participants could be seen walking around town with their passports in hand.

John Shaw, the executive director of the Westport South Beach Historical Society, said Storms & Seafood is a wintertime reminder of the year-round Westport’s Fresh Catch initiative regarding seafood specific to Westport.

“Westport’s Fresh Catch is a group of businesses and industry that focus on the availability of fresh seafood uniquely in Westport,” Shaw said. ”We have a year-round program that helps identify for tourists and our guests where they can buy seafood direct, where they can buy it through the different providers. We’ve created a seasonality that reminds people of what’s in season when. Storms & Seafood is related to that so people can come during this active time of the winter season, it attracts people to storm watching, beachcombing and also experience the seafood restaurants.”

According to Shaw, Storms & Seafood helps drive visitors to the Westport Maritime Museum and Grays Harbor Lighthouse and gives people an insight into a working harbor.

“Storms & Seafood has been really good, the integration with the museum and the lighthouse where people go to get their educational stamps, it does bring people to us,” Shaw said. “People can come and see what it’s like in a dynamic coastal town during the winter season and come to a real working port with a real working seafood industry. That’s just part of sharing who we are along the coast. Most people don’t understand the significance of Westport as a small town in the seafood industry. There’s a lot of work through Fresh Catch to get people educated about the quality of seafood and availability.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “King tide is a popular, non-scientific term people often use to describe exceptionally high tides.” The last king tides to hit Westport were in mid-November and mid-December, respectively.

King tides make for spectacular viewing and photo opportunities, however, Experience Westport preaches “safety first” and advises visitors to “be very careful when viewing such extreme conditions.” The Observation Tower of the Westport Marina is the recommended viewing spot, while several other locations offer breathtaking vantage points.

This was the last king tide of the 2024-25 winter season.