I remember that during COVID, humans stayed home. Their noisy machines didn’t interrupt and override natural sounds. No grinding motors or airplanes, no fuel consumption. It was just the birds, the breeze, the tide flowing out, and the tide flowing in. Bits of kelp and seaweed floated slowly by, on the outgoing ebb tide. The tide had a calming effect during a time when everything else seemed uncertain.
On a summer morning, when even weather is on vacation, nothing can hold back the moon’s pull on water. On an ebb tide, water drains out, to where? To the other side? of where? The Earth spins under the water, liquid is affected by the gravitational pull of the moon. These are forces I do not completely understand, but I count on it, ebbing out and flooding in. In Alaska, tides can have a huge 20 to 25 foot drop from high to low tide. Here in the San Juan Islands, tides can have a 10 foot drop between high and low. This month, we see some of the lowest tides of the year, minus tides.
The force of the tide coming in, the flood tide, is like its own weather system, with rushing boiling water currents. The small island in front of my house is named Danger Rocks, a serious warning about tide rips. A few years ago, we saw a kayak flip over. The energy of the incoming currents can be heard, and seen, sounding like a mountain river during the spring melt. Waves of white churning water flood in at the peak of the tide. Logs, sticks, and bits of seaweed hurtle past. The rhthym of the tides is my backdrop. I look out and check the movement on the water, it’s going out, it’s slack water now, the tide is at maximum flood. Though my life is not scheduled by the tides, I still feel connected.
When I fished, tidal rhthyms played an important role. As the movement of currents slowed down towards slack water, salmon foraged, fish bit. Exactly an hour before the morning slack tide was highly productive. That was all good and reliable.
The other aspect of tides that I paid close attention to was at certain places, famous places, where the out-going tide met incoming ocean swells. The collision of forces, tides against swells, caused waves to stack up. Waves could be pushed together, become very steep: tide rips. Locally, Cattle Pass is one of those places:
The Columbia River Bar, in Astoria, is one of the most notorious of those places, where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean.
Point Wilson near Port Townsend, where Puget Sound empties into the Straits of Juan de Fuca is another of those places.
Cape Ommaney, where Chatham Straits meets the Pacific Ocean, and
Cape Spencer, where Icy Straits squeezes through Inian Pass, are both known to have intense tidal forces at play.
All are famous for outgoing tides colliding with incoming swells, places where sometimes it was necessary to go, but only when the tides were favorable.
That piece of yours is so amazing. I can see the water moving. I love this post. And I remember the quiet of Covid. Although I don't miss the onslaught of the virus, I sure miss the quiet. And we don't even live in the city!