Thursday, June 04, 2009

Can you hear the tide turn?

As a lifetime resident of the Bay of Fundy, I often get asked some really interesting questions by visitors. Such as:

  • when the tide is out in the Bay of Fundy, is it high on the other side of the world? (answer: it's likely to be "out" on the other side too but "in" a quarter way round the world)
  • where does all the water go when the tide goes out? (answer: creates a massive bulge in the middle of the ocean - this is weird but picture the cornea of the human eye relative to the rest of the eyeball - that's what the tide bulge looks like, tho' proportionately smaller, of course!)
  • can a resident of the Bay sense whether the tide is in or out? I'm not sure how to answer this one but I can tell you that we can sense/hear when the tide stops coming in and turns to go back out. Or at least I can...er, I assume other Fundy folk can too? Seriously, if I'm at the beach at high tide, when the tide reaches it's peak, there're a few seconds where it makes a sluffing sound - like a thousand puppy tongues lapping - before it turns to go out. I'd record this and put it on YouTube but you kinda hafta visit hand-in- hand with a Fundy resident to catch the subtleties of this!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fabulous!
We just went to the Bay of Fundy a couple weekends ago. It was so beautiful!!! I look forward to heading back to explore it more this summer!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Hi Terry!
When we stay in Parrsboro, the wind is strong on the incoming tide and when it turns the winds ceases. Your description of the sluffing sound it makes is accurate. We will be heading up next Sunday for a week. I LOVE Parrsboro!