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Fox Island
 Ozette Drive, Fox Island, WA
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Entry Type: Shore
Aquatic Life: Plenty To See
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Rating: 3.00 by 1 divers
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Fox Island is a shore accessible salt water dive site, located at Ozette Drive, Fox Island, WA. This dive site has an average rating of 3.00 out of 5 from 1 scuba divers.
Fox Island is not for the faint of heart! Fully exposed to
the Tacoma Narrows tidal flow, you’ll need to plan your dive very carefully.
But, once in the calm water of the slack tide, you’ll be hugely rewarded by
some terrific sights. Walls, nooks and crannies abound, with every kind of
marine life you’d expect!
Fox Island East Wall is a good place to experience several short, but interesting, sandstone walls that have a great variety of Puget Sound aquatic life. Dive at slack water.
Directions: OK, folks, break out your maps (or favorite
mapping web site), and find this spot before you leave home! Located SW of Gig
Harbor, and just West of Tacoma, Fox Island has one major road that winds its
way to the park. From Highway 16 out of Tacoma, take the Fox Island exit to the
left (Gig Harbor is to the right). Cross the Fox Island bridge, and stay on the
main road, which soon becomes Island Boulevard FI. It will eventually bear right
onto 9th Ave. Then bear left on Kamus. In a tenth of a mile, bear right back
onto Island Blvd, which will soon become Mowitch Drive. Bear right onto 14th
Ave, which soon becomes Ozette Drive. Bear left down to the water. The dive is
simple, compared to the process of getting there!
I have only dove the west wall here. This is a very
beautiful dive site with nice ledges and a lot of vegetation growing on the
walls. We dove down to the lower second wall first and it was cool to find an
octo in one of the many holes in the sandstone walls - nice contour. The
shallower wall was my favorite part of the dive as it was covered in various
kinds of kelp and a lot of small creatures living amongst them - quite a few
nudibranches. I think the thing that sets this dive site apart from other dives
I have done in the narrows is the abundance of plant life. The day was so nice
we could look up the wall and see the sunlight shining through the kelp as it
swayed with the current - very nice dive and a must do.
The Fox Island West Wall has a lot of octopus living on it
if you look hard. The other part of it is that there is no current on this wall
but it is best to plan your dive at slack after flood for best visibility (I’ve
gotten 45+ feet). The wall is small and kind of hard to find, but if you have
good visibility, then swim out and look for a sunken buoy that is about 10 or
15 feet underwater and you should be able to see it. Descend on that to land
right on the wall. The wall is only about 100 feet long so after swimming up
and down it 4 or 5 times you might get bored. If you swim over the top of the
wall and keep swimming I’ve found a sea pen forest which is pretty cool, but
other than the wall being small, this is a very nice dive.
I have only visited the east wall of Fox Island twice. A
nice wall dive at slack only. The current can really rip. Pictures show the
entry and fishing pier. The west wall located on the other end of Kamus drive
is a easy non current dependant dive suitable for everyone. Because of
landslides it is now a boat only dive.
http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/USA_West/Washington/Fox_Island/index.htm