TIDAL TALK
It's easy to remember when the tide is “in” and when the tide is “out “, or “low “ and “high”, if you are among the lucky individuals who happen to be doing the authentic beach thing on the beautiful tropical island of Tahiti.
That's the serious part of living in such a paradise, I understand. It is the only spot the surface of Earth which enjoys consistent tide times. It is high tide in Tahiti at noon and at midnight of each and every day and it is said to be low tide each day at 6 AM and 6 PM. It is a unique thing with Tahiti where you can count on for such scheduled tidal conditions day-after-day, year-after-year. The tide, measures about one foot so visitors my not even notice the changes.
Some other places are noted for their erratic, flamboyant
and frisky tides such as and extreme depths of incoming waters - such as the let's-brag-about-it Bay of Fundy, up Nova Scotia, which overdoes it with as much as fifty-three feet of water when the tide comes decides to come in.
It is interesting to note that such tidal conditions are commonly blamed, like romance in living, on the Moon. The sun -four hundred times more away than the moon also plays a major role. Other factors may determine the nature and severity of tidal activities in specific areas such a the depth of the body of water concerned or a geographical feature such as a protruding cape of land or a narrow entrance. The Mines Basin area. Near Wolfville, on the Bay of Fundy you can witness the highest tides known with the world's record 52.5 feet (sixteen meters) above low tide level. The flow of sea water in the Minas Channel just north of Blomindon equals the combined flow of all the rivers and streams on planet Earth. It is estimated that the mid-tide flow measures about fourteen billion tons (l.4 cubic kilometers) of sea water flow through the channel each time the tide changes.Geologists can actually measure tilt in the terrain of Nova Scotia when the tide is in and they can tell when it goes out.
Most of us are unaware of the immensity of the world's tides. We can appreciate the bigness of such sites as the Grand Canyon by simply looking at it, but the tides can be deceptive and, when combined with storms, they can be deadly. Six thousand persons dead at Galveston, Texas in 1903 stand as sufficient testimony on that score.
In addition to normal geographic causes, the high tides of the Bay of Fundy are said to be influenced by the resonance from other tidal conditions along the coast of Maine. You can place the cause of tide change s on the Moon, the Sun, on terrain variations and, around the pseudo-fringe of thinking about tidal changes some people are wondering about the possible influence of the planets, black holes and other space “unknowns” on the tidal sequences Earth. Just when we have pretty well cleared up many of the ancient folklore reasons for tide changes, along comes a new hint of some “astral-lore” suppositions.
A.L.M. June 28, 2004 [c539wds]
