We're looking at going down Hwy 99 instead of 5 so some areas are close to the coast.
Does 99 continue into WA? I'm pretty sure that that's the route we generally take out of Vancouver (we like to visit there), and it just sort of plunks onto 5. From the map it looks like you could go to 548, but that's still not really along the water.
I could be totally wrong, but just in case I'm not (and if anyone else wants to chime in on this it would be great), I would hate for you to want a *water* view, and realize you're in farm country (the Delta) with a smelly horse farm along the road, and one (if memory serves) glimpse of the TOP of a ship at one point as you veer towards where the water is (over there beyond the things in between), before you veer back...
Now, to go into White Rock and go along the road...that looks cool, and if you're a Psych fan it's bonus fun b/c they film there sometimes... But if a train goes by while you're driving along, there goes your water view until it's gone.
DS's birthday is over Mem Day weekend most years, and we went up there around that time, and the Peace Arch was NOT fun. The only fun was watching the people get into the NEXUS lane, then at the last minute supposedly realize that they shouldn't be in that lane, and then scrunch their way into the normal lane, a good hour ahead of where they would have otherwise been. And that's not very fun.
If we were doing it again, we would take the train! (and did take the train to and from Vancouver for our honeymoon RCCL cruise) Then again, last time we took the train there was a landslide 2.5 days before our journey home, and so we got to take a most UN-fun charter bus home. no bathroom, no food, no water view...sigh. (they have to wait a certain number of hours before they get trains on the tracks after a slide)