Roll Tide!

Living in the South, southern United States, that is, I've heard this phrase many times. Being observant of my surroundings, but not being a "sports person" I knew this to be about a college athletics team, though now I'm not even sure what school. But this post is not about sports, but about tides. Here's what Wikipedia says...

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth.

Some shorelines experience two almost equal high tides and two low tides each day, called a semi-diurnal tide. Some locations experience only one high and one low tide each day, called a diurnal tide. Some locations experience two uneven tides a day, or sometimes one high and one low each day; this is called a mixed tide. The times and amplitude of the tides at a locale are influenced by the alignment of the Sun and Moon, by the pattern of tides in the deep ocean, by the amphidromicsystems of the oceans, and by the shape of the coastline and near-shore.

I got lots of information in my research, lots of it "over my head" so I decided not to regurgitate it here, not that I didn't think yall would understand, but I simply didn't want to wade thru it. What I really wanted to know was how much water is moved during the tides, I found out that the least amount of water displaced is 1.5 feet, but the highest on record is 17 meters, or 56 FEET! That's ALOT OF WATER, here are some pictures, because aren't they worth a thousand words?

OUR BEACH loses about 30 feet of shore during high tide, it comes right up to the rocks of the sea wall, and is about 5 ft deep. You've seen this next picture in another post, but it does show how low tide gets, and this isn't even the lowest.

And sunset the other night, shows the ocean right at the rocks. As a matter of fact, you can't walk on that side of the road without getting splashed. We've seen tourists having their picture taken and get splashed, hilarious, as long as it doesn't happen to me...

So, there you have it, a little snippet on the ebb and flow of tides. Speaking of, it's about low tide now, so I better get some sunscreen and get to walking. Stay tuned, the adventure continues, one low tide at a time.