Cheung Chau tide times

Cheung Chau is a dumbbell-shaped island approximately 2.5 kilometres long, 1 kilometre at its widest, and entirely car-free. It lies 10 kilometres southwest of Hong Kong Island and is reachable by ordinary ferry from Central Pier in 45 minutes, or by fast ferry in 25 minutes. The island's 24,000 residents are among the most densely housed outside the Hong Kong Island core — streets between the ferry pier and the market are too narrow for any vehicle wider than a bicycle or hand cart, which gives the town centre the character of a walkable neighbourhood that Hong Kong's larger areas have lost.

The tidal regime at Cheung Chau is mixed semidiurnal, with a spring range of approximately 1.5 metres. The diurnal inequality is pronounced in summer — one of the two daily high waters is significantly higher than the other, and this asymmetry creates a long, slow ebb on some days. The western beach (facing the Lamma Channel) and the eastern beach (facing into Cheung Chau's sheltered bay) respond differently to the tidal cycle. The western beach is exposed to the Lamma Channel's moderate fetch and receives a slight wave action on the ebb, when the exposed sandflat gives more beach width. The eastern bay is almost completely protected from wave action at all tide states.

Cheung Chau produced Lee Lai-shan, who won Hong Kong's first (and for 25 years, only) Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games in windsurfing — the Lamma Channel off the western beach was where she trained. A small statue near the ferry pier commemorates the win. Windsurfing is still practiced from the western beach, with equipment rental available in summer months. The channel generates usable wind conditions for windsurfing when the northeast monsoon is active (October to March) and the southwest monsoon is blowing (May to September).

The Cheung Chau Bun Festival, held during the fourth lunar month (typically April or May), is one of Hong Kong's most distinctive community events. Bamboo towers 18 metres high, covered in steamed buns, are erected in the Pak Tai Temple forecourt. In the original tradition, participants scrambled up the towers at midnight to grab the buns, which were believed to bring luck. The competition was suspended after a structural accident in 1978 and revived in 2005 with structural safety certification; the midnight bun scramble is now the centrepiece of a ticketed event. The festival also includes a procession of children dressed as deities, appearing to float on air above platforms hidden in their costumes — an effect that requires months of practice.

Fishing from the Cheung Chau waterfront and rocky headlands is productive for reef species — grouper, snapper, and sea bream — on the flood tide. The western point of the island, accessible via the coastal path, has deeper water and more consistent fishing than the inner harbour. Fresh seafood restaurants on the waterfront serve the day's catch; choosing by what is moving in the tanks (rather than the menu) ensures the most recently landed fish.

The island's inland hiking tracks lead to the northern headland (Kwun Yam Wan, with small beach) and the southern headland, where a cave associated with the pirate Cheung Po Tsai is a local tourist landmark. The coastal path circuits the island in approximately 2 hours of easy walking.

Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height — model-derived, not from a local gauge. The local tide authority is the Hong Kong Observatory, which publishes annual tide tables for Hong Kong waters.