Saint-Gilles-les-Bains tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 02:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Indian/Reunion local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Saint-Gilles-les-Bains is Réunion's main beach resort, on the leeward western coast of the island where the fringing reef system provides the only significant stretch of protected lagoon water in a territory otherwise fully exposed to the Indian Ocean. The reef runs from roughly 500 to 800 m offshore, and the lagoon between the reef crest and the beach is the primary zone for swimming, snorkelling, boat departures, and any marine recreation that requires calm water. The tidal regime at Saint-Gilles is semidiurnal with a spring range of approximately 0.9 m and neap range around 0.4 m. This is microtidal by global standards — a fraction of the Mozambique Channel amplitude — but the small range has disproportionate consequence on the reef flat because the inner lagoon depths are so shallow to begin with. At mean high water springs the lagoon over the seagrass and sand areas runs 1.5 to 2.5 m. At low water springs the inner reef flat drops to 0.3 to 0.5 m in the shallowest sections, and the reef crest itself is very close to or slightly exposed at the surface. The reef crest at Saint-Gilles is the critical threshold for several activities. Snorkellers who want to swim out to the inner face of the crest need at least mid-flood — enough water to cross the crest without fin-on-coral contact. Small boat and dinghy operators launching from the beach use the same mid-flood to high water window to cross the crest and access open water. The timing of those crossings relative to the tide is something Saint-Gilles boat operators manage from experience rather than from a published protocol, but the underlying calculation is the same: 0.9 m above chart datum is sufficient; 0.3 m above chart datum is not. Saint-Gilles marina (Port de Plaisance de Saint-Gilles) is the departure point for big-game fishing vessels and the larger dive-and-snorkel operators who run to the outer reef and deeper offshore sites. The marina entrance channel is dredged and navigable at all tidal states; the depth constraint in the basin is not tidal but is subject to the usual marina siltation dynamics. Fishing targets from the boats out of Saint-Gilles include wahoo, dorado, blue and black marlin, yellowfin tuna, and sailfish — pelagic species that range widely regardless of tidal phase in the open Indian Ocean beyond the reef. Shark risk on the western Réunion coast is managed through the Vigie-Requin programme, which operates acoustic monitoring receivers along the lagoon and reef system. The programme issues a daily beach status for supervised beaches — the colour-coded system (green, orange, red) indicates the level of assessed risk based on receiver detection of tagged sharks in the preceding period. Water entry at supervised beaches is conditional on the daily status, which is posted at each beach and online. The status is independent of tidal state: sharks can be present at any tide, and the programme does not correlate its alerts with the tide cycle. Check the Vigie-Requin status before any water entry at Saint-Gilles. Beach-walkers at Saint-Gilles who arrive at low water and walk south toward La Saline-les-Bains cover approximately 3 km of beach that is at its widest — 30 to 40 m of dry sand at spring low — before the casuarina-pine backed dune narrows the strand at the southern end. The beach at Saint-Gilles and La Saline is predominantly white coral sand; the low-water zone is marked by darker seagrass wrack deposited by the previous high. The Vigie-Requin daily beach status is posted at the supervised beach access points at Saint-Gilles and at La Saline; check it before entering the water regardless of tide state. Predictions for Saint-Gilles-les-Bains 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 m on height above chart datum. SHOM (Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine) is the authoritative source for Réunion tide tables. These predictions are not for navigation.