Pondering tides and currents

One of the nice things my friend Major did before he left for the Lesser Antilles last week was to make marina reservations for our long-planned cruise to Southport, NC.

So, while Major and Linda are day-tripping on an Americas Cup vessel somewhere near Sint Maarten, I am at work calculating departure/arrival times for the various legs of the Southport trip.

That's when I realized Major's first marina reservation is about 60 miles away from our starting point. Ms. Bettencourt is a 6-knot boat (on a good day). Do the arithmetic: Georgetown, SC, to Myrtle Beach, our first destination, equals about 10 hours steaming time -- if tides and currents prove amenable.

Suddenly, predictive information about tides and currents becomes more important. If we don't time things right, we could be plodding up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway interminably. We could run out of Doublestuff Oreo Cookies before we get to our first overnight stop. Major gets cranky when this happens. So do I.

Wikipedia

The tidal range in the Bay of Fundy can be as much as 17 meters. Tidal information is probably really important here.

Long dock lines must be a big help too.











The first time I really needed tide and current data was a winter in 1980something. I was planning a  springtime cruise from Morehead City, NC, to Savannah, GA. I found an order form and sent it with a check to some bureau in Washington. Eventually, a thick book of tide tables for various locations in my area of interest arrived in the mailbox.

In the last decade, the same data, in a more timely and more accessible format, have become available on the Internet. Most modern marine GPS units also provide the information, but I find that wringing it out of my Garmin unit, if  I am not physically in the area of interest, is a tedious and frustrating process.

So I went to Google on the PC, expecting to find a link to some government site that would provide tables to interpolate tides and currents from prime stations along the US East Coast. Perhaps there was a link to such a site, but I never got there. I was diverted by a citation for a cellphone app entitled, appropriately, "Tides and Currents." It is free, so what the heck? I hit download.

The result was amazing. First, I get a box that says something like "your Android devices can operate this app," quickly followed by advice that "Tides and Currents has been sent to your mobile device and your Nexus-7 tablet."

How did they even know I have a Nexus tablet? How could they find it, much less send it an app? I sprinted for the kitchen where both the cellphone and the Nexus tablet were last seen. It was true! The Tides and Currents apps were there -- on both devices.






Don't ask me how this got on my  tablet










And, not only is it magic, this app actually works. It's remarkably easy to use, intuitive, searchable and acceptably accurate.

So, now I know how tides and currents will effect that long first leg of our cruise to Southport: As best I can calculate from my new Tides and Currents app, not much. It's going to be a long, hard slog no matter what.

As a precaution, we'll load extra Oreos.