Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the
four main basins, of Puget Sound in the state of Washington.
Hood Canal is not a canal in the sense of being a man-made
waterway—it is a natural waterway. Hood Canal is long and narrow
with an average width of 1.5 miles (2.4 km) and a mean depth of
53.8 metres (177 ft). It has 342.6 kilometres (212.9 mi) of
shoreline and 42.4 square kilometres (16.4 sq mi) of tideland.
Its surface area is 385.6 square kilometres (148.9 sq mi) and it
contains a volume of water totaling 21 cubic kilometres
(17,000,000 acre·ft). Hood Canal extends for about 50 miles (80
km) southwest from the entrance between Foulweather Bluff and
Tala Point to Union, where it turns sharply to the northeast, a
stretch called The Great Bend. It continues for about 15 miles
(24 km) to Belfair, where it ends in a shallow tideland called
Lynch Cove. Along its entire length, Hood Canal separates the
Kitsap Peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. The
U.S. Navy's Naval Base Kits