Waquoit Bay is a small landlocked tidal bay on the south shore of Cape Cod in the US state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. The bay is connected with Nantucket Sound

Nantucket Sound

Nantucket Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is long and wide, and is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha's Vineyard on the west. Between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard it is connected to the...

 and separates the towns of Mashpee

Mashpee, Massachusetts

Mashpee is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 14,006 as of 2010.For geographic and demographic information on specific parts of the town of Mashpee, please see the articles on Mashpee Neck, Monomoscoy Island, New Seabury, Popponesset, Popponesset Island,...

 and Falmouth

Falmouth, Massachusetts

Falmouth is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States; Barnstable County is coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 31,531 at the 2010 census....

.

In the early 1960s Norwegian researcher Johannes Kr. Tornöe suggested the shallow bay could be the location of Leifsbudir

Leifsbudir

Leifsbudir was a settlement, mentioned in the Greenland Saga, founded by Leif Eriksson in 1000 or 1001 in Vinland.Later, 160 Greenlanders, including 16 women, established themselves there under the leadership of Norseman Thorfinn Karlsefni, the first European to come into contact with the local...

, (Leif's booths or houses) the long sought site of the Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

 colony of Vinland

Vinland

Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...

.