Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Olympia, Budd Inlet, WA

There are many marinas at Olympia. Berths, electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, launching ramps, storage, and marine supplies are available. Hull and engine repairs can be made at a marina just S of the port wharf. A private yacht club has its moorings at the head of West Bay 0.3 mile S of the turning basin.
A large marina in the East Bay has a 77-ton lift that can handle craft up to 90 feet long.
Navigation:
Click the “Map View” button above to see a chart of this harbor.
Budd Inlet, 29 miles by water from Tacoma, is about 6 miles long, extending S from Dana Passage and terminating in flats that bare at the head of East Bay and West Bay. The entrance is between Cooper Point and Dofflemyer Point; the latter is marked by a light. The entrance to Budd Inlet is deep except for a 27-foot shoal in the middle of the entrance. The shores are comparatively low and wooded, and the depths shoal less abruptly on the E than on the W side of the inlet. East Bay and West Bay are obstructed by flats and shoals that bare for about 0.8 mile, through which channels have been dredged to the Olympia waterfront.
Olympia, the capital of the State of Washington is at the head of East and West bays at the S end of Budd Inlet. The capitol dome and the radio tower on the N end of the port fill area are prominent landmarks from outside the entrance channel.
A Federal project provides for a 30-foot channel from deepwater in Budd Inlet to a 30-foot turning basin off the W side of the port terminal near the head of West Bay. The channel is marked by lighted and unlighted buoys, lights, and lighted ranges.
A dredged channel with a project depth of 13 feet leads SE from the 30-foot outer channel to a mooring basin on the E side of the peninsula at the head of East Bay; the channel is marked by a lights.
Olympia Shoal, which bares, is about 0.4 mile off the W shore, 3 miles inside the entrance. A light is on the E side of the shoal, and on its W side are lights marking the approach to the dredged channel. There are numerous shoals, piles, dolphins, and log booms on the E side of the harbor. A visible wreck, in about 47°05’14″N., 122°55’49″W., is near the approach to the dredged entrance channel to Olympia; the wreck is marked by an orange buoy.