Vancouver Island is home to hundreds and hundreds of miles of gorgeous ocean coast to explore. Some of it is sandy, but for the most part, it’s rugged and rocky. The surrounding waters are crisp, clear, and chock full of marine life. At low tide, on the rocky shoreline, you are bound to find interesting tide pools to explore.
Last fall, I took you along on a hike out to the famous Botanical Beach Provincial Park at the southwest end of the Island. This time I give you a look at a, lesser-known but still a fascinating and colorful set of tide pools, on the east side of the Island near Campbell River. The pools form on a rocky reef a few hundred yards offshore.
The best of them are only accessible during the lowest of the low tides. We chose July 5th, 2020, around noon hour to venture out. You can see from the tide graphic below that a low tide of 0.3 meters occurred at 12:38 pm. We were able to spend a good hour or more of happy tide pooling out at the tip of the reef.
Video Footage from Willow Point Reef, Campbell River BC
Both Anne and I immensely enjoyed this visit to the Willow Point Reef and have planned to return again this summer for further explorations. The density of life was incredible!
New Video with the Tide Even Lower – May 2021
See More of Our Vancouver Island Adventures in the Archives
