Named with most of the harbour's water on 2 December 1948, and the shoreline the coast's flood mapping is measured against.
Where Gerrans Bay sits, and the other places we attend
around Pender Harbour. Every name on the map is a link.
Named with most of the harbour on 2 December 1948
Gerrans Bay is the arm of water between Madeira Park and Francis Peninsula. It has been an official bay name since December 1948, recorded at 49 degrees 37 minutes 11 seconds north and 124 degrees 02 minutes 25 seconds west.
That date settled most of the harbour's water names in one sitting. Gunboat Bay, Mixal Lake, Hotel Lake, Bargain Bay, Bargain Narrows and Daniel Point all carry the same decision date. The exceptions came much later: Hospital Bay in 1963, Lee Bay in 1973 and Whiskey Slough in 1981. Whiskey Slough is inside Gerrans Bay, on the Francis Peninsula shore, and the two positions are about 1.6 kilometres apart on the same road.
The eastern shore is reached from Madeira Park Road and the roads off it, among them Wesjac Road, Dubois Road and Shark Lane. Routing on 12 September 2026 from the gazetted position gave 3.87 kilometres and 6 minutes to the Madeira Park centre, and about 35.8 kilometres and 39 minutes to Sechelt Hospital. This is the closest of the harbour's fourteen places to both.
The wharf, and who runs it
Bylaw 708 names Hospital Bay and Gerrans Bay as the locations of government wharves managed by the Harbour Authority of Pender Harbour. The authority's own list of facilities places its Whiskey Slough dock in Gerrans Bay on Francis Peninsula, and gives 604-883-2234 and marine radio channel 66A as its contacts. Coho Marina is on this side of the water, at 12907 Shark Lane.
The Coho Marina fire, 1 May 2024
A structure fire at Coho Marina on 1 May 2024 brought out 17 firefighters. The department had, in its own description of the response, just the water on the trucks. The cause was not investigated.
That phrase is the useful one for anybody who owns on this water. The Pender Harbour Volunteer Fire Department runs five engines across two halls holding 3,300 US gallons in total and lists no tender. Hall 1, at 4990 Gonzales Road, is on this side of the harbour and houses BC Ambulance Station 265 in the same building. A fire flow study completed in June 2026 reported that neither Pender Harbour water system could meet the flows a structure fire needs while the Dogwood Reservoir stood off-line, and singled out the commercial centre of Madeira Park, where the available figure is 30 litres a second.
A 29-foot boat left Dubois Road behind a pickup
On the evening of 10 January 2024, at about 9:30, a 29-foot power boat was towed away from Dubois Road behind a dark pickup, heading south. On 14 June 2023 a handgun was brandished from a boat at the Madeira Park wharf and seven officers attended. In August 2021 gas tanks were drilled in the 12600 block of Madeira Park Road, and the RCMP called fuel theft an ongoing and underreported problem in the area.
A trailered boat on a driveway, a fuel tank in a shed and an outboard on a transom are the items that move on this shore, and they move at night, out of sight of the house they belong to.
The tide line the flood mapping is measured against
The regional district published coastal flood mapping in 2025 and named Madeira Park as one of two critical areas on the whole Sunshine Coast. The consultant's summary at the presentation was that the king tide of today will be the ordinary tide by around 2050. Gerrans Bay is the water on the Madeira Park side that the statement refers to.
For an owner, the working consequence is at the bottom of the property rather than in a planning document. Dock ramps and gangways designed for one tidal range spend more of the year at the top of their travel. Lower decks, boathouse sills, pump houses and shoreline stairs take salt water more often than they were built for. Those are inspection items, and they fail slowly enough that nobody notices unless someone is looking on a schedule.
Water on both shores comes from the South Pender Harbour system, sourced at McNeill Lake with Harris Lake as backup, about 917 connections serving roughly 2,300 residents across Madeira Park and Francis Peninsula. Volumetric billing began in 2026.
What a check at Gerrans Bay covers
The driveway, the gate and the boat trailer, including the hitch lock and wheel clamp
Doors, windows, sheds and the pump house, with each lock turned rather than glanced at
Heat proved to be working, or the plumbing drained with the valve shut and tagged
The water meter read and noted, since South Pender water has been billed by volume since 2026
Dock, ramp, gangway and float at the high-water mark, with hardware and fasteners checked
The boat at its mooring or on its trailer: lines, cover, batteries, bilge and fuel
Outboards, kickers, fuel cans and jerry cans stored on the property
Shoreline stairs, lower decking and boathouse sills for salt damage and rot
A dated photographic record of everything above, sent the day it is taken
Most policies covering an empty house set out how often it must be inspected through the heating season and by whom, with four consecutive days a common outside limit and a competent person doing the work, unless the water has been turned off and the lines emptied. No two insurers phrase it identically, so read the condition in your own policy before agreeing an interval.
What it costs
A scheduled check at Gerrans Bay 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.
