High or Low Tide?

[mike_s]

Mike, you are pretty familiar with St. Andrews jetties right?
If so what would be the best time to dive in that sat.

seeing how you'd want to try to get in 2 tanks of diving there, I'd show up an hour or two before the scheduled high tide so you have time to gear up, etc and still have time to perhaps try a 2nd dive before the currents pick back up from the tide going out....

the tide charts aren't always 100% accurate on time.

I'm not an expert on St Andrews like some folks here are, but that's a general rule you can apply to any of the jetties in that area. Maybe somebody that dives there all the time can give more specific "local knowledge" on how accurate the currents are with the printed tide time schedules.

Note: you're high tide time 8:47am. Check to see what time they open the gates first. I can't remember if it's 8am or 9am. This might hinder the "get there way earlier" approach.

 

[derekxec]

i dont know about where you are but here (south florida) whenever it rains a lot you can count on the outgoing tide to be very dirty and the incoming to be clean...BUT if it hasnt rained for a while then the outgoing will be as clean as the incoming

 

[Saltair]

NOAA creates tables printed by commercial companies that give times of slack and max currents at thousands off points along the Coast. These tables also offer the tables for figuring current spped at anytime during a cycle. It is important to note that in some areas they are not always accurate, and other conditions can impact the timimg, but compared against local knowledge they are a good resource. It is what mariners use when trying to determine slack tides. Does anybody use these current tables?

 

[CompuDude]

It's all about TideTool.

http://www.toolworks.com/bilofsky/tidetool/

 

[String]

Or http://www.wxtide32.com/

For a PC based tide prediction programme.

 

[mike_s]

Got one I can load on my LG Verizon phone ?

 

[Charlie99]

It's all about TideTool.

http://www.toolworks.com/bilofsky/tidetool/

Like a lot of TIDE prediction tools, it doesn't have very many locations with CURRENT predictions. This is also true of NOAA.

A place to check for information is Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book. You should be able to find it any any chandlery or boat equipment shop and easily check to see if the points you are interesting in have any info on currents. IIRC, it has current info for many points that aren't in the various tide programs or the NOAA datasets.