Time and tide wait for no man. 14th century author Geoffrey Chaucer
On a recent visit home, an adult grandson noticed the tide inching into the yard, higher than he remembered. His grandfather explained that he was watching a king tide, a tide greater than the traditional spring tides that “spring forth” during full and new moons. Sure enough, the incoming king tide covered the marsh grass and flooded the tidal creek well into the yard.
King tides are a beautiful sight to behold. For a time, the marshland gives way to the water and appears as a large lake outside our back door. We’ve learned not to plant flowers or shrubs where the salt water might reach them on a king tide.
According to Boating Magazine, “When the Moon, Earth, and Sun fall in a straight line, which we call syzygy (siz-eh-gee), we notice the greatest difference between high and low tide water levels. These spring tides occur twice each month, during the full and new Moon. If the Moon is at perigee, the closest it approaches Earth in its orbit, the tides are especially high and low.”
West Texas A&M University explains why tides even exist. “The ocean tides on earth are caused by both the moon's gravity and the sun's gravity… Even though the sun is much more massive and therefore has stronger overall gravity than the moon, the moon is closer to the earth so that its gravitational gradient is stronger than that of the sun. Because ocean tides are the effect of ocean water responding to a gravitational gradient, the moon plays a larger role in creating tides than does the sun.”
Neap tide occurs seven days after spring tide. It’s the point where there is the least difference in water level between high and low tides.
As much as watching the tides outside my door fascinate me, viewing the huge difference in tides at Fundy Bay, one of the seven wonders of North America, hold me in awe. According to the Bay of Funday webpage, this place, where the world’s highest tides are recorded, 160 billion tons of seawater flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy. Tides here can peak at 50 feet, the height of a five-story building. The Bay of Fundy, half way between the equator and the North Pole, ebbs and floods between New Brunswick and Novia Scotia.
For me, the ebb and flood of tides is far more than their scientific explanation. The mere fact that the tides come and go as regularly as the sun rises in the mornings offers serenity. And while the tide seems in constant movement, coming and going, there is a period of time when it appears as if the water is still - slack tide.
Richard Hollis, writing for the New Statesman in England, says, “Slack-tide is the river’s most hypnotic moment, an occurrence of such serenity that even the terns become temporarily becalmed. The cormorants and great crested grebes thrive in the still water and will dive for half a minute or more in search of breakfast. But the leggy herons must wait for the waters to drop, and today, a dozen of them linger on the bird-boats below Fulham Rail Bridge, as if queuing for a restaurant to open.”
I love this time. With a tidal creek skirting our property, the great white herons, the wood storks the little blue herons and other sea birds walk the creek bed in search of food. If slack tide comes at breakfast time, we always have a show to watch as we eat breakfast on our back porch.
Sir James Frazer, in recording folklore and religious beliefs across cultures in The Golden Bough reminds me that I’m not the first, nor the last, to feel the pull of the tides. He writes, “Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt… to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man, of animals, and of plants. In the flowing tide, they see not merely a symbol, but a cause of exuberance, of prosperity, and of life.”
Like clockwork, the tides ebb and flood twice daily, about an hour later each day than the day before because the moon also rises almost an hour later each day. And while the tides may dictate the hours of those whose livelihood depend on the sea, the very movement itself reminds the rest of us to slow down and marvel at the splendor of God’s world.
2020
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