Predicting tides is vital for great surfers
The best Surf instructors know why it is important to people that use the sea for their livelihood. Professional and fun l fishermen use knowledge of the tides along with tidal currents to improve catches. Depending on the types of fish and water depth in their area, fish may concentrate during ebb or flooding tidal currents. In some places, strong tidal currents concentrate bait with smaller fish, attracting predator fish. Also, knowledge of the tides is of interest to recreational beachgoers and sup surfers.
All surfers and standup paddle boarders need to understand that Piloting ships through shallow water, and intracoastal waterways along with estuaries means knowledge of the time and height of the tides and the speed and direction of the tidal currents. Always critical to sailing ships because they took advantage of tides and currents to maneuver properly. Knowing about tides and currents is still critical because now the newest and biggest ships are very much larger than old sailing ships. Modern depths and widths of canals and ports in which they sail, combined with increased boating traffic leaves little room for mistakes. Now Real-time observation systems are being used in many major ports now so captions and operators are safe.
Surfers and surfing instructors are concerned with tides, water heights along with tidal currents also. Knowledge of tidal mixing of near-shore waters, where pollutants are removed and resources are mixed. Tidal currents move animals and plants from breeding areas in estuaries out to deeper waters. Surfing and sup surfers can and should take oceanography classes at a local community college to understand why tidal fluctuations work, and to better understand the circulation of the ocean and its relationship to world climatic changes.
Most coastal areas but with a few exceptions, have two high tides and two low tides every lunar day, and that is of vital importance to surfing and standup paddelboarding. By now everyone knows the concept of the 24-hour solar day, the amount of time it takes for a s site on Earth to rotate from a point under the sun to the same point under our sun. Inversely, a lunar day is the amount of time taken for a site on the Earth to rotate from a point under the moon to the same site under the moon. Different from a solar day, however, each lunar day is 24 hours and 50 minutes. Our lunar day is always 50 minutes longer than a solar day as our moon revolves around the Earth along the same direction that the Earth rotates around its axis. Oddly , it takes the Earth an extra 50 minutes to catch up with our moon
As the Earth rotates through 2 tidal “bulges” each lunar day, our coastal areas have two high and two low tides every 24 hours and 50 minutes. High tides will occur 12 hours and 25 minutes apart. And also it takes 6 hours and 12.5 minutes for the water at the shore to go from high to low, or from low to high.