Des Moines, WA · East Passage, Puget Sound

Saltwater State Park — Reef Chart

47.3733° N, 122.3273° W
Sheet SWSP‑3 · illustrative, not for navigation

Reef layout adapted from the Friends of Saltwater State Park Artificial Reef Map (illus. Preston Graves / Ryna Green, 2021). Live conditions: Saltwater Slack Windows →

Legend

Entry — concrete stairs, N end of the beach

Surface swim — ~270° magnetic to the buoy

Mooring buoy — 2, for dive-boat tie-up

Descent buoy — 2, marks reef access, one per reef

Cobble / rope trail — guideline between structures

Depth contour — 20 / 30 / 50 / 65 / 85 fsw, illustrative

Site facts

Skill: Intermediate — current + a long swim
Current: flood SE, ebb NNW, parallel to shore
Slack ref.: The Narrows (Tacoma), no time correction
Depth range: 15 fsw eelgrass to 85 fsw at the outer piles
Hazard: time slack for the dive's midpoint, not the start

Site description

Washington's only state park with a built-in artificial reef — and its second one. The original tire-pile reef sunk here in the 1970s was pulled out decades later once the rubber started leaching into the water, and the Washington Scuba Alliance replaced it in 2009 with three engineered boulder piles reaching toward 80 feet, protected as a no-take zone ever since. Lingcod here grow long enough — up to 4 feet — to make the swap look like an upgrade.

Not a navigational chart. Positions are drawn illustratively from the printed guidebook's entry directions and the Friends group's reef map, laid over a real satellite still — good for orientation and dive-brief planning, not for plotting a GPS track. Guide lines and buoys move; confirm on site.