Oak Island Tide Chart

The town asks visitors to check each beach access before using it, since tides and erosion change them, and recommends looking at the tide forecast and at how your chosen spot fares at high tide. The tide times for Oak Island, NC, in the tables above give that forecast; a spot that is roomy at low tide can be narrow a few hours later.

The town’s pier at 705 Ocean Drive was first built more than 65 years ago and was rebuilt and reopened in 2019. It stands 27 feet high and runs 880 feet out over the ocean.

Behind the beach, the town has put floating docks on Davis Canal at the SE 9th Street and SE 20th Street crossovers, and a smaller one at 9th Place East, each with a fishing area and wildlife viewing. A floating dock rises and falls with the water, so its deck keeps the same height above the canal from low tide to high. The town’s Nature Center, at the north end of NE 52nd Street beside Malcolm Register Park, has another floating dock and looks out over the Intracoastal Waterway.

At the west end of the island, the town’s Point access, at the end of West Beach Drive or Kings Lynn Drive, looks onto Lockwood Folly Inlet and offers wildlife viewing and a fishing area. Up the Lockwoods Folly River behind the inlet, NOAA’s Varnamtown point ran over an hour behind Yaupon Beach over the 30 days from October 21, 2026, with high tides about 0.9 ft lower and low tides nearly an hour and a half later. To the east, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the tide keeps a later clock as well: NOAA’s Southport point ran about half an hour behind Yaupon Beach, with high tides about 0.7 ft lower.

Tide for tide from November 9 to December 8, the median gap puts high tide on Oak Island 2 minutes earlier than at Holden Beach (8 minutes earlier to 6 minutes later) and low tide 5 minutes earlier (8 minutes earlier to 14 minutes later).

In height, highs on Oak Island come out 0.1 ft higher and lows 0.3 ft higher.

The gap is not a constant: with two independent predictions it wanders over 22 minutes.