The lakes of course have the warmest water, the ocean will be cold, but there are beaches where the water is shallow where it won’t be as bad. The closest big beach to downtown is along Dallas Road, which is at the edge of Beacon Hill Park (which itself stretches from the edge of downtown to the ocean). The wind is nearly always fairly strong at this stretch, thus not great for swimming, but you’ll see lot of kite surfers on the ocean and parachute gliders pretty much every day as even on calm days the wind picks up off the ocean in the later afternoon. If you just want to a dip in the ocean and swim a bit to say you did it, this will work. By car it’s less than five minutes from anywhere downtown and walking about 15-30 minutes or longer if you’re on the opposite edge of downtown.
Dallas Road by
ai.dan, on Flickr
Dallas Road Beach - February 6, 2024. by
JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr
Now if you continue around the that point (Clover Point) in the last picture you’ll come across the more protected Ross Bay, where quite a few people go for their daily swim, but not really a swimming beach.
Ross Bay, Victoria. January 7, 2024 by
JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr
Otherwise, the beach shown above, Gonzales is the best for warmier water and is a great beach atmosphere. It’s about a ten minute drive from downtown.
Next best would be Willows Beach, 12 minutes at most by car from downtown:
DHA_4974.jpg by
Cameron Knowlton, on Flickr
A 15 minute drive will take you to another nice beach similar to Willows, called Cadboro Bay, just down the hill from the University of Victoria:
View over Cadboro Bay - Seaplane Flight, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada by
Black Diamond Images, on Flickr
The aerial view makes it look small, but it’s quite a big beach and popular with families.
To the east of Victoria you’ll find some spectacular more rugged/wilderness beaches, but didn’t include those as they are further from downtown.
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Victoria too. 
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