Winyah Bay is a coastal estuary that is the confluence of the Waccamaw River, the Pee Dee River, the Black River and the Sampit River in Georgetown County in eastern South Carolina. The historic port city of Georgetown is located on the bay, and the bay generally serves as the terminating point for the Grand Strand.
The bay is evidence of a drowned coastline, created by a rise in sea level in recent geologic time. It was a prime site for fishing by Native Americans and an early area to develop in colonial times as a seaport and center of rice culture and timbering.
The entrance to the bay is flanked by North Island, South Island and Cat Island, comprising the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, willed to the State by Tom Yawkey, former owner of the Boston Red Sox.
Famous quotes containing the word bay:
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)