Viking Bay slipway (Broadstairs)

Viking Bay is a roughly horseshoe-shaped sandy bay of about 200 to 300 metres, running from the harbour and pier at its northern end to the clocktower and a children's tidal pool at the southern end. The harbour dries out at low water, with 4.5 metres off the pier end at high water springs and 3 metres at neaps. Broadstairs sits close to the North Foreland corner of Kent, at the point where the Channel and North Sea tidal streams meet and divide.

The water off the bay lies within one of the most heavily designated stretches of coast in England: the Thanet Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation, a Special Protection Area and Ramsar site, and the 6,279-hectare Thanet Coast Marine Conservation Zone, designated in November 2013. Beneath the surface is an intertidal and sublittoral chalk reef, part of what JNCC records as the longest continuous stretch of coastal chalk in the UK, supporting piddocks, seaweeds and rockpool life as well as feeding grounds for wintering birds. Visible from the water are the harbour pier, the white former lifeboat house on the harbourside (the Boathouse, known locally as Old Wonky, established in 1868), and the cliff-top promenade and Victorian and Edwardian buildings ringing the bay.