Ferries from Point Defiance

Point Defiance is the southernmost Washington State Ferries terminal and it runs the shortest crossing in the system's south end — 15 minutes to Tahlequah at the bottom of Vashon Island, 20 sailings.

The crossing

Point Defiance to Tahlequah takes about 15 minutes, with 20 sailings in our timetable and 40 across the terminal in both directions. Operated by Washington State Ferries.

⚠ This reaches the quiet end of Vashon, not the busy one

Tahlequah is at Vashon's southern tip. The island's main village and its busy terminal at Vashon Heights are about twenty kilometres north — half an hour of island road.

Using this crossing to reach Seattle via Vashon is possible and rarely sensible. It is a Tacoma-to-south-Vashon link, and treating it as a shortcut to the city produces a long afternoon.

Where the terminal is

Inside Point Defiance Park in Tacoma — a 700-acre park with old-growth forest, a zoo and aquarium, and the Fort Nisqually living-history museum. Very few ferry terminals sit inside a park of that size.

The approach road runs down through the trees, which makes this one of the more pleasant terminal arrivals in the system and one of the easier ones to be late for.

What the crossing carries

South Vashon residents, Tacoma commuters and, in summer, cyclists riding the island end to end. Twenty sailings on a fifteen-minute run is comfortable but not dense.

Timing

Commuter-shaped with a modest peak. Because the route is short and the vessel small, a single busy sailing can leave vehicles behind — the wait is short, but it is real.