Longnose Skate Copper Rockfish

Fox Island Dive Sites

Fox Island offers divers several great dive sites to choose from.  Whether coming by car or boat, there are several sites to satisfy both novice and expert divers:

Fox Island Bridge    Our favorite dive site on Fox Island.  We call it Nudibranch City.  Click on the link for our site review.

Fox Island West Wall    A great second dive, or the perfect site for new divers, training or testing new gear.  See the site review for updated directions.

Fox Island East Wall    One of the best wall dives in Puget Sound, but be sure to dive during a low tidal exchange.

Fox Island Ferry Dock   Shallow dive site that was once a popular shore dive.  Now you have to dive the site by boat.  Popular for bottle hunters.

Toliva Shoals            An incredible Boat Dive at the south end of the Tacoma Narrows.  Review Coming soon.

Z's Reef        An easy boat dive that features a long wall loaded with wolf eels and Octopus.

Directions:

To get to Fox Island, take the Highway 16 exit from I-5 in Tacoma and head West over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  Take the second (Olympic Drive/Fox Island) exit.  At the top of the ramp, turn left onto Olympic Drive NW which becomes  56th which then becomes Fillmore Drive. Turn left at the T intersection onto Wollochet Drive. Turn left at the light on to 70th and then at the T intersection, turn right onto Warren Drive and follow this road across the bridge to Fox Island.

The ladies complain about the lack of facilities on the island, so be sure to make a pit stop in Gig Harbor as you pass through.  There are several gas stations as you exit Highway 16, as well as a Starbucks, and a QFC that has nice bathrooms. 

Boat Ramps:

There is a boat ramp to the right just as you cross the bridge to Fox Island.  I use this ramp, but it is VERY SHALLOW at medium to low tides.  The Ramp is free, but you do get what you pay for.  Plan on recovering your boat at higher tides when using this ramp.

There is another ramp at Wollochet, as well as a nice ramp at the Day Island Marina for those of you with larger boats.