Life on the half shell: Aquaculture dominates farming on Willapa Bay

On a blustery Thursday afternoon, Steve Shotwell and Tim Ritchey headed out to the farm. But instead of a harvester running through a field, Shotwell motored his custom-built, shallow-draft oyster boat out of the Bay Center Marina into the flats of Willapa Bay at high tide.

“I did this stuff in Bay Center as a child,” Shotwell said, noting his mother was probably watching him leave from his childhood home above the marina.