Totten Inlet lies in the southern end of
Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...
in the
U.S. state of
Washington. The
inlet
An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea.
Overview
In ...
extends southwest from the western end of
Squaxin Passage, and much of the county line between
Mason and
Thurston counties runs down the center of it. A
spit extends west for about from
Steamboat Island. The inlet shoals gradually to near Burns Point, 100 feet high, on the south shore, where it bares at low tide.
Totten Inlet splits into two smaller inlets,
Oyster Bay and
Little Skookum Inlet. Oyster Bay, located south of Burns Point, is an extensive
mudflat.
Oysters
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of Seawater, salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in Marine (ocean), marine or Brackish water, brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly Calcification, calcified, a ...
are grown in this area, and there are log booms. Totten Inlet is one of Washington's most productive areas for growing oysters. Oysters grow extremely fast in the inlet's
algae
Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...
-rich water.
Taylor Shellfish, the United States' largest producer of farmed
shellfish, got its start in Totten Inlet and is still headquartered today near its waters.
Totten Inlet was named by
Charles Wilkes during the
Wilkes Expedition of 1838–1842, to honor George M. Totten, one of the expedition's midshipmen.
on the
Budd Coast of Antarctica is also named for George Totten.
References
External links
*
Inlets of Washington (state)
Bodies of water of Mason County, Washington
Bodies of water of Thurston County, Washington
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