Oyster Blog — News from Here

A red algal bloom started last week near Hoodsport, and slowly worked its way north. Today it hit the beaches at Hama Hama. Ever since the bloom started we've been getting calls from people concerned about red tide. The water is indeed red, and especially so when all the algae concentrates in still water on an incoming tide, as above. But it's not the scary "red tide" -- this algae doesn't hurt shellfish or the people who eat them. And it's not necessarily a harmful algal bloom (or HAB, the term that's replacing 'red tide' in the scientific parlance), although...

Today our friend Preston stopped by with some wild morel and porcini mushrooms he'd recently picked somewhere east of the Cascade Mountains. Preston-- who probably knows all of the Olympic Peninsula's sweet spots for both wild mushrooms and good surf--  runs a local gourmet food supply company called Wild West. He stops by once a week to deliver fresh halibut and salmon from Neah Bay and the Quilleute River. He also picks up HH oysters to sell to restaurants and farmer's markets on the north end of the Peninsula. Close-up of porcini mushroom gills. Since it was lunchtime, and we...

...and specifically, the joys of harvesting your own oysters and clams at Potlatch State Park. We probably couldn't say it better: Moss-covered alders lean together over the roadway; the Olympic Mountains are mirrored in the glassy, cold water. The icy mountain runoff ushered by rivers into the brackish waters of the canal makes a prime breeding environment for oysters; in tide pools, mud flats and gravel banks, the oysters’ irregularly fluted gray-white shells take shape around the rocks and nurse shells they’ve decided to grow on. Read the article here. And FYI: Razor clams do not grow in Hood Canal.

Either the Port of Hoodsport has really amped up its shipping business, or this guy took a wrong turn coming down the Straits. Happy St. Patrick's Day!