More Tides

What is a perigean spring tide?  It’s when a new moon coincides with the moon’s orbit coming closest to Earth.  It results in a stronger gravitational pull.  Extra high tides and extra low tides.

A new moon is a dark moon – when the Earth and sun and moon are in alignment, with the moon between the sun and Earth.  A perigee of the moon is when the moon’s elliptical orbit brings it closest to Earth.  When these both happen at the same time in the spring, it’s called a perigean spring tide.  Which is what we have now. 

This beach is always beautiful.

But now there’s a LOT more beach.  The end of the long dock is barely touching the water.

This is the view of the ocean, behind the Methodist church.  The coral rock is normally underwater.

Here’s a spot on the beach where it can be hard to get around the coral outcropping without getting wet.

One day I was trying to scamper around the outcropping when a wave came up behind me and splashed all the way up, past my head – I looked like a water fountain.  Not today.

Here is some real estate we don’t normally see:

These rocky ridges are normally covered with water.  Lots and lots of beach with these extra low tides.  The down sides?  Hard to climb up onto the docks, and easy to run aground.  Lots of boats are plowing up the bottom.

Here’s another natural phenomenon – green clouds. 

See the green tint on the bottom of the clouds?  The cloud is reflecting the green/blue hues of the Sea of Abaco as they pass over it.  The color will disappear when the clouds are above Elbow Cay and the ocean.  About 800 years ago, Polynesians navigated their catamarans throughout the south Pacific Ocean, in part, by “reading” clouds like this to find islands, which tint the clouds green.