Davis Bay
Davis Bay is the one place on the Sunshine Coast where the highway is the seawall. From Bay Road to Mission Point, Highway 101 runs at beach level with the pier and the walkway on the water side and every house on the hill above.
The bay faces southwest with, in the words of an SFU planner, "an open run all the way to Vancouver Island."
No other neighbourhood on the Coast is this close to a hospital, a fire hall and the police. No other neighbourhood is this exposed to a southeast blow.
What a storm does here
On 7 January 2022 a king tide arrived with a 50 km/h west wind gusting to 70. Metre-high breaking waves pushed logs two feet in diameter onto the highway. The beachside post-and-chain barriers were snapped. The welded stair rails were bent "into pretzels." A resident writing afterwards asked why the Bella Beach Inn should have "its own seawater pool lapping at the first-floor doors." The highway closed and the buses stopped.
The tides in December 2021 had been exactly as high. There was no wind. Nothing happened. What decides the damage in Davis Bay is the wind on the day, not the tide table.
In December 2024 a windstorm on king tides washed boats onto Sechelt beaches, carried off kayaks that had been stored above the tide line, and swept picnic tables into the water. Environment Canada said afterwards that if the wind had peaked at high tide instead of three hours before it, the surge would have been another 20 centimetres higher.
The seawall was built in 1999. The District of Sechelt's 2025 budget lists its remediation as "Priority 1: Critical" — it is "being undermined by water and wave action."
The regional district's coastal flood mapping, published in late 2025, names Davis Bay as one of two critical areas on the Coast. The Coast Reporter's account of the presentation: "essential infrastructure such as fire halls, sports fields and sections of the highway may be inundated within decades." The planner who presented it said:
The king tide of today will be the regular tide in about 2050.
A planner presenting the Sunshine Coast Regional District's coastal flood mapping, December 2025
Northwest of the bay the highway climbs the bluff and there are houses below it on the water at Selma Park. Those houses, and the boats at the Selma Park launch, are fully exposed to it.
The one bridge
Everything south of Sechelt — Roberts Creek, Gibsons, the ferry — is reached by one road through Davis Bay and over one bridge across Chapman Creek. The province's 2025 highway study says Highway 101 is "the only route connecting the various communities." It considered a bypass with a second Chapman Creek bridge and did not recommend it.
When the Davis Bay stretch closes — logs on the road, a crash, a flood — Sechelt hospital is on one side and half the Coast is on the other. In August 2025 a crash closed the highway at Halfmoon Bay for more than six hours with a hundred people stuck in their cars in 30-degree heat. That was a Sunday afternoon. In a winter storm with the power out it would be the same road and the same bridge.
Close to help, and close to the water
From the Davis Bay pier it is five minutes to Sechelt hospital, seven to the fire hall and eight to the RCMP detachment. Sechelt has had career firefighters on a day shift since January 2025. If something is reported in Davis Bay, the response is as fast as anywhere on the Coast.
The condition is "reported." A wet basement behind a locked door on Laurel Road is not reported by anyone. Neither is a stranger who walked up a driveway.
Sechelt's district-wide numbers are the highest on the Coast: 27 residential break-ins in 2025, up from 20 the year before; 110 thefts from vehicles.
In Selma Park, a 26-foot cabin cruiser was taken from the Selma Park boat launch at 6:30 one morning in June 2024 and found across town. In February 2025, a house on Surf Circle was emptied — an SUV, four bicycles, tools, a mower — while "the homeowners were on vacation." Neighbours had noticed the doors were open. Nobody had been asked to look.
Older houses, and cottages that can no longer be rented
The District of Sechelt's census figures show 610 dwellings — one in ten — with nobody living in them on census day, and a median age of 57.6. Twenty-eight per cent of homes were built before 1981.
Since 2023, Sechelt's rules do not permit short-term rental of a secondary residence without the owner present. A Davis Bay cottage that used to pay for itself on summer weekends now sits empty between visits, with nobody coming and going.
What a check in Davis Bay covers
Every visit follows the same list and produces the same photographed record:
- After any southeast or west wind: windows, decks, railings, siding, and anything stored outside
- Doors, windows, sheds, gates, boats and trailers — locked and untouched
- Heat on and holding; no smell of gas, smoke or damp
- Water: under sinks, the hot-water tank, the basement or crawlspace after heavy rain
- Ceilings and walls for staining; gutters and downspouts running clear
- Salt on windows and hardware; corrosion on locks, hinges, railings
- Mail, flyers, and anything that shows a house is empty
- If the highway closes: the visit is made from the side we are on, as soon as it opens
Most home insurance policies require an empty house to be checked at set intervals during the heating season — often within four days of your leaving — by a "competent person," or the water shut off and drained. The dated, photographed record from each visit is what the insurer asks for.
What it costs
A scheduled check is $55 a visit, plus $10 travel. The travel charge is the same everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee. See the full price list.
Where these facts come from
Every figure, date and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are listed so you can read them yourself.
- Coast Reporter, 13 January 2022 — king tides on the Coast, and Davis Bay's "open run" to Vancouver Island
- Coast Reporter, 7 January 2022 — Highway 101 at Davis Bay closed by logs, and the damage along the seawalk
- Coast Reporter, December 2024 — the weekend storm, the boats and kayaks, and Environment Canada on the surge
- Coast Reporter, 2025 — the Sechelt budget that lists the seawall as "Priority 1: Critical"
- Coast Reporter, December 2025 — the coastal flood mapping, Davis Bay, and the quotation above
- B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit — Highway 101 Alternate Route Planning Study, July 2025
- Coast Reporter, August 2025 — the Highway 101 closure and the case for a closure plan
- Coast Reporter — Sechelt RCMP statistics for 2025, including break-ins and theft from vehicles
- Coast Reporter, June 2024 — the cabin cruiser taken from the Selma Park boat launch
- Coast Reporter, February 2025 — the Surf Circle break-in while the owners were away
- Statistics Canada, 2021 Census — District of Sechelt, dwellings, median age and period of construction
- District of Sechelt — short-term rental licences, and un-hosted secondary residences
Checked 11 September 2026. Newspaper and government pages do move. If a link no longer works, tell us and we will find where it went.