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Paddle Relaxed

Oak Bay Marina - Parking Lot to Gonzales Bay

A pleasant shoreline paddle from Oak Bay to Gonzales Bay

When Saturday, June 20, 2020 9:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Location Oak Bay Marina - Parking Lot
Directions
1 of 13 open Free
Destination Gonzales Bay
Trip style Day
Experience Level 1
Distance 5 nm
Route plan A

Mike Jackson has agreed to lead a group of 5 paddlers as well, so we can accommodate more members who want to come. We'll make sure to keep our distance and stagger start times a little to make it a bit easier to do so. We'll launch from the beach in the small cove on the south side of the Oak Bay Marina parking lot, right by Beach Drive. Once underway, we'll paddle at a modest pace along the rocky Oak Bay shoreline, around Gonzales Point, through Enterprise Channel and McNeill Bay, then around Harling Point to Gonzales Bay. The current at the points and in the channel can be active, but we'll stay close to shore where it is less, and have both the morning ebb and afternoon flood on our side!

Route plan B

If the wind is too strong we'll stay inside Willows Bay, make our way to Cattle Point and into Cadboro Bay to Gyro Park. A strong westerly wind may result in relocating the paddle to Telegraph Cove and the sheltered Gordon Head shoreline instead.

Safety reminders

Always dress for the possibility of immersion and please bring a drybag containing a spare change of clothes. The drybag goes in your kayak with you, not in your car at the launch site. Please bring a lunch or snacks and sufficient beverage to keep you hydrated, as well as a thermos of something warm. Your paddle leader will introduce the plan and make sure everyone is comfortable with the requirements. Please stay off the water until the group is ready. If you have a VHF radio please bring it with you.

Oak Bay Marina - Parking Lot tide/current reference

Sources & licences

Tide & current predictions

CHS provides tide heights and current predictions. Secondary current stations are estimates; large-tide estimates are identified separately. Tide turns and slack water are independent. Conditions along the route vary with location.

CHS atlas & lookup licences

Canadian Atlas of Tidal Currents, Volume 3: Juan de Fuca Strait to Strait of Georgia (2016), Canadian Hydrographic Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada. © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2022.

Map images are reproduced from the CHS publication and selected for the date and time shown. The publication permits noncommercial reproduction in any format; commercial reproduction requires prior written permission from CHS. This viewer is not an official CHS publication and is not to be used for navigation.

Current Atlas Lookup Tables: Juan de Fuca Strait to Strait of Georgia by Emanuel Borsboom. SISKA adapts the tables to show selected hours and atlas page numbers. The original tables and these adapted tables are provided under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada (CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 CA).

Dewey atlas attribution

Salish Sea Tidal Current Atlas and calendar lookup tables by Richard K. Dewey, self-published. The selected volume and map number are shown in the viewer. SISKA displays extracted map images and selects them using the author's lookup tables.

For recreational reference only. Not for navigation. These products are not endorsed by CHS or NOAA and are not official Canadian or US government publications. Use current official charts and publications for navigation.

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SISKA · Paddle · Relaxed

Printed Nov 9, 2026 11:21 AM · siska.ca/activities/1150

Oak Bay Marina - Parking Lot to Gonzales Bay

Saturday, June 20, 2020 · 9:30 AM – 3:30 PM

Launch
Oak Bay Marina - Parking Lot
Destination
Gonzales Bay
Distance
5 nm
Leader
Alan Campbell

Route plan A

Mike Jackson has agreed to lead a group of 5 paddlers as well, so we can accommodate more members who want to come. We'll make sure to keep our distance and stagger start times a little to make it a bit easier to do so. We'll launch from the beach in the small cove on the south side of the Oak Bay Marina parking lot, right by Beach Drive. Once underway, we'll paddle at a modest pace along the rocky Oak Bay shoreline, around Gonzales Point, through Enterprise Channel and McNeill Bay, then around Harling Point to Gonzales Bay. The current at the points and in the channel can be active, but we'll stay close to shore where it is less, and have both the morning ebb and afternoon flood on our side!

Route plan B

If the wind is too strong we'll stay inside Willows Bay, make our way to Cattle Point and into Cadboro Bay to Gyro Park. A strong westerly wind may result in relocating the paddle to Telegraph Cove and the sheltered Gordon Head shoreline instead.