Strange Tides and Astronomical Events

The tides are really weird this week.  They normally advance forward in time each tide cycle as they are on a lunar cycle rather than solar.  The lunar day has 23 hours, so this causes the time of each tide to advance one hour each day, roughly speaking.

This week, though, the tides actually move backward in time for one cycle, and then forward for the next.  For example, yesterday afternoon low tide was at 4:17pm, but low tide this morning was at 4:07am, when it should have been around 4:45.  I guess its not that big of a deal, and it does straighten out by the weekend, but the tides are one of those things you usually consider dependable.  They go in and out, and they wait for no man.

I spoke with a few captains around the docks, and no one had a good explanation.  The only thing I can come up with is the fact that Venus, Jupiter, and the moon are pretty close to being in alignment in the night sky right now.  Kind of like the deal with spring and neap tides, they must have some sort of gravitational effect on the earth.  The nuts and bolts of the matter is that we don’t have a low tide during daylight hours for the next few days.