Day Island is a peninsula on the Western side of Tacoma WA, just a mile or two south of The Narrows bridge, and a short distance south of Titlow Beach. The entrance is from the small 40' wide public acces beach. There is a nice 10' craggy reef running roughly parallel to shore. The north end is shallow, ranging from 25' to 50'. The southern end is deeper, from about 40' to 90'. The numerous crags and openings in the reef are home to many wolf eels and octopus, as well as being covered with lots of anemone, crabs, sculpin, lingcod, prawns, sea cucumbers, urchins, starfish, and much more. I've even seen a ratfish and a few of spiny dogfish sharks here. I've seen lots of small jellyfish floating around in the shallows, and one HUGE red lion's mane jelly that spanned 10 to 12 feet at least with it's tentacles outstretched, and the mantle was basketball sized.

At Low Tide, I dive the Northern (right-hand) end of the reef, entering the water exactly at Seattle's slack. I like to swim out about 50 yards, drop down to the bottom and continue out to the reef, where I drop down and start exploring. The tide will gently carry you along the reef for a few minutes, slack, then start carrying you back to the entry location. The northern end ranges from around 25' to 50'.

At High Tide, I dive the Southern (left-hand) end of the reef. From my experience there, I like to enter the water around 15 minutes prior to Seattle's slack. Again, the tide will gently carry you along the reef to the south, slack, and then carry you back along the wall to the starting point. This end ranges from 50' to 98'. There's a sheer wall with grooves cut by the current and holes often occupied by wolf eels. The wall starts in about 60' and drops straight down to almost 100'. Great place to practice bouyancy control.

This is an incredible dive if timed right, as the surface swim isn't bad, and current gently helps you along, making it very relaxed. The life is abundant, and the big life is really cool. When exiting, I leave the reef and head inshore along the gently-sloping bottom until I got to 15' then do a safety stop while playing with the little critters on the bottom.

The only negative to this site is that some of the residents do not like scuba divers. Apparently many years ago, a few divers were very obnoxious, leaving the small beach filthy with garbage and their own waste, and basically causing trouble. The residents have even tried to close the beach down, and often put up a rope or markers saying something like "no access," but this is a PUBLIC beach access, and they cannot shut it down. I try to make it my goal there to be the most clean, friendly and cheerful diver they've ever seen. Please do the same at this site, be courteous, and try to change their image of what divers are like.

The following is Jeff Cuneo's review of Day Island:

Day Island is about 1 mile south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:--It is the peninsula of land that sticks out that you see when you are at Titlow: It is an awesome dive if you like wall dives, octopus, or wolf eels. It is not a good dive for small life because it is sandstone and is exposed to extreme current which doesn’t allow things such as anemones to attach to it--in other words -- barren.

I decide when to start my dive by using a standard Seattle tide book and start my dive at the low point or the high point--I know it sounds too simple but its perfect for this site. The best dive is straight out to the central area with the main most impressive wall to the left and more broken up ridges and walls to the right. In a typical dive to the central area divers can expect to see at least 10 wolf eel pairs in a period of about 20 minutes. If working right the wall extends off the end of the island with a small gap that makes it look like the wall has ended right at the tip of the island. If continuing on be prepared to do some scary diving with currents that sweep out into deeper water. Don’t go here without a boat and a lot of nerve--the wall just keeps going and I’ve never been all the way to the end of it.

The way I dive it is that if its low tide I work the right side by swimming out and drifting right and encountering slack half way through the dive and then being swept back to exit near the central area. I also walk in the water far to the left sometimes and swim out a long distance and start the dive trying to drift most of the length of the wall except you cant stop easy during the first part of dive and there is a Niagra Falls effect at the top of the main wall.

If its high tide I work the left side starting again at central area but instead being swept to the left and work the main wall area that is deeper and curves out into the water away from shore and far out into water and then when the current turns the object is to start drifting back and try to make it in at least a little closer to shore which can be hard because of the same Niagra Falls effect. Keep in mind if you try this dive at LOW tide that you will be way the hell out in the water and you will not make it back to shore if you want to come up no matter how long you swim. It is also deeper and so you will be trying to beeline it for shore to keep from being hit by boats but you will be very deep and low on air at the end of dive. That’s why its not a good idea to work to the left at low tide---because when the tide starts coming in you will end up at Fox Island in about 10 minutes with no hope of making it to shore.

Various odd notes: You cant surface here if separated and each diver has to be able to navigate by compass into shore before coming up. Very high possibility of being hit by a boat on this dive since the marina is just around the tip of the peninsula and all boats are funneled directly over the dive site.

The current while swimming out is going in a circle with a neutral zone in the middle. Use your compass to be sure to hit the wall do not walk up to the water and look at it and think that’s the way the current is going--it isn’t--as a matter of fact its reversed at the shore.