Northwest Dive Club

This dive site is currently under construction. Please see the map below for restricted areas and plan your dive accordingly



Dive Site Name: Mukilteo T-dock

Current Sensitive: Not usually, though I have on occasion experienced swift current on big ebb,or flood along with the ferry departing

Location/Address: Located in Mukilteo next to the silver cloud hotel

Directions: Exit 189 off I-5 west towards Mukilteo ferry,Right at ferry terminal next to Ivars one block to stop sign.

Parking: Parking is free but do not park under the hotel!!!

Staging Area: Usually crowded on weekends, this is a popular training site for several dive shops so parking can be tough sometimes.

Surface Swim: No surface swim and easy shore access, Although there is a buoy about 100yds off shore at N heading that drops to a runabout at 120fsw.

Nearby Facilities: Bathroom is located at ferry terminal or state park located across the street, There is a coffee shop, restaurants, and pub, Great for after dive activities.

Special Considerations: This site is located next to the wash state ferry terminal,Diving to close to the ferry can get you a ticket!!

Dive Site Description: This is a training site with easy shore access, with depths to 100+fsw. One nice thing about this site is that you can dive deep with a relatively short swim, there are lots of crab, shrimp, and and a few resident ling cod.

Here's a great video made by NWDC member Mike Meagher, on Mukilteo diving:

Question for those of you who have dove the T-Dock more than I have.

Last time I was there, I encountered what appears to be a speed limit, or other road sign standing in about 30 fsw. There is a rope that runs roughly south from there, toward the Ferry dock. So my question is, what's at the other end of the rope?

I found it towards the end of the dive, and didn't have the gas to go investigating. The rope isn't on the bottom, it's about 4' off the bottom and is fairly tight. Anybody know where it goes?

Jake

Nwbrewer wrote:Last time I was there, I encountered what appears to be a speed limit, or other road sign standing in about 30 fsw.

hmm ... you don't mean this one, do ya?

Nope, that's not it. This one had so much growth on it, you can't read it anymore. Whoever put it in did a good job too, it's pretty pumb.

I am now informed that the rope runs to some concrete blocks and a small tire reef. I'll have to go check it out.

me, too. i don't think i've ever come across the other one - or i don't remember if i did!

I think that originally it was a "School Zone" sign. The rope that is connected to it is set at a specific depth, (15 - 20 feet depending on the tide). I have seen OW Scuba instructors use it to keep track of their students during basic OW drills.

I miss the good ol' days when you could dive that site and be lonely. Now if you don't get there early on a weekend there is no place to park and 20 - 30 OW students stirring up the water so much that vis is less than 5 feet.....and all that silt flows down slope.

Speaking of the good "ol days" A few years ago i was at around 110 fsw or so at the T-dock. I came across an old crab ring, so I followd the rope. When I came to the barincle encrusted float it said Mc'onells Marine... Im sure you remember that place!

DiverDown wrote:Speaking of the good "ol days" A few years ago i was at around 110 fsw or so at the T-dock. I came across an old crab ring, so I followd the rope. When I came to the barincle encrusted float it said Mc'onells Marine... Im sure you remember that place!

Oh, yeah! My dad used to launch his boat there. They had a really cool set of "train tracks" that went from the boat house down into the water. They'd put your boat on a type of cart on the tracks and then you'd shoot down them into the water and float away. I used to just LOVE that.

- John

John, are those the tracks that are still there just east of the entry?

Were the Silver cloud hotel is, used to be Mc,onells marine. The tracks to the right was the former Navy fuel depot. You used to be able to rent boats, fishing bait, and gear. Before the fish and game dept realized that over harvesting almost wiped out salmon populations in the puget sound. I think that the Ivars next door still has old photos of the waterfront from years ago. But then Ivars used to be called Taylors landing back then..

I guess I'm that old too. I remember launching there to go fishing. I wondered if those were the tracks too. Once on a fishing trip, we had a school of porpoise swimming around the boat and I thought they were killer whale trying to sink us!! LOL my dad still laughs about that one.

I remember McConnel's, Taylors and the Seahorse Restraund which was where the Buzz Inn is now. I used to live on Columbia beach as a kid and in winter we'd boat across for the Sea Hore's clam chowder.

Someone said that there was a bottle dump in the area. Anyone know where abouts to find it?

S'Mike

TCWestby wrote:I remember McConnel's, Taylors and the Seahorse Restraund which was where the Buzz Inn is now. I used to live on Columbia beach as a kid and in winter we'd boat across for the Sea Hore's clam chowder.

My favorite meal at the Seahorse restaurant was their Sunday buffet. Most restaurants have a chef at the end of the line carving roast beef or ham. The Seahorse had a chef carving out chunks of halibut from a slab the size of a spare tire! They had a ceddar cheese sauce to go over it that was out of this world.....our family had a LOT of good times there....those were the days....

Dude, how could I have forgotten the Sunday buffet that was awsome...

To get to the bottle field you set your compass by lining up the 2 lamp posts on the North side of the Silver Cloud Inn. It is in about 130 FSW depending on the tide. You can also swim (caution there can be a strong current at this location so it could be quite a swim) out about 100 yards to the bouy and descend down to the concrete block. The bottle field is South of the the boat. I wouldn't swim more then 50 - 75 feet South. It has been a long time since I have been there but there used to be a lot of old bottles there. The lumber ships used to anchor in that area when there was a sawmill where NMF is located.

Mike

Thanks for the info about the bottle field. Too deep. oh well.

S'Mike

smike there are also a lot of bottle north, buy the refueling pier, and the depth is more managable. 45-50fsw. Not a big pile, but still a lot of bottles in the area.

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. I am planning on doing that dive soon, when I can be there at the same time as a lower tide that exposes some beach. I'm not ready to swim that far, at least, not both ways.
S'Mike

Anybody know what the second bouy that has appeared at the T-dock leads to? It's out about the same depth profile as the boat.

I'd rather not swim all the way out there and drop to 130' to find out it's a concrete block. ](*,)

Is it for mooring the construction equipment for the dock repairs? Anybody?

Jake

I chased it down the other day- it is attached to the buoy line off of the boat, or the concrete pier next to the boat- it's tied off about 10 feet up from the bottom.

Hey, if anybody finds a downrigger ball in that area above the boat, I'd love to hear where you found it- I will trade a very funny diving story for the information.

That's the black one right? I've been down that one the the concrete block and the boat. There's a white one further south, is it tied off in the same area? It looks to be seperate to me.

Nwbrewer wrote:That's the black one right? I've been down that one the the concrete block and the boat. There's a white one further south, is it tied off in the same area? It looks to be seperate to me.

What Josh is saying is that there are two buoys that go to the same place. The original buoy is attached to the mooring block by the boat. The Mystery buoy is attached to the original buoy line about 10 feet from the bottom, near the mooring block. I think the reason for the second buoy is that the original buoy is not visible at high tide. That's my theory anyway. I saw the line when you and I dove the boat and figured it was attached to the "new" buoy.

Yep, that's what I was trying to say- they both go to the boat.

Nailer99 wrote:Hey, if anybody finds a downrigger ball in that area above the boat, I'd love to hear where you found it-

Josh, what's he paying for a recovery fee? LOL