Apart from peculiarities of their own in normal weather, tides are affected by strong winds and a low barometer, and then the tide tables, with their rise and fall to an inch and their time of high water to a minute, become hopelessly inaccurate. A strong north-north-west gale in the North Sea will raise the surface two or three feet and make the tides run longer on the flood; a strong south-east or south-west wind has the opposite effect. A low glass and a strong south-west wind will make big tides at the entrance of the Channel by Plymouth. On October 14, 1881, a large mail-steamer was unable to dock at the East India Docks, London, because a severe westerly gale had kept the tide back, so that at high water it was five or six feet below its proper level, and the next flood came up three hours before its time. In January of the same year a tide was registered at London four feet ten inches above high-water mark. At Liverpool there is a record of a tide six feet above ‘H.W.O.S.,’ which is the abbreviation for ‘high water ordinary springs.’ At Milford Haven in January, 1884, during a heavy westerly gale, the tide stopped falling two hours before the proper time for low water, and at low-water time had risen fifteen feet. So great is the contrariness of the tides that even strong winds cannot be relied upon for their effects.
For those whose reclaimed marshes lie behind low sea-walls in Essex the irregularities of the tides are too exciting at times. After the fierce gale in November, 1897, had veered from south-west to north-west, innumerable breaches were made in the sea-walls of the East Coast estuaries and many marshes ‘went to sea.’ Watchers on Latchingdon Hill, which overlooks the archipelago between the Crouch and the Thames, saw a memorable sight that day. With the shift of wind the atmosphere had cleared, and the shores of Kent were visible. At the time of high water there was a big tide, and the flood was still running strong, and continued for nearly two hours beyond its proper time. Suddenly great streaks of white appeared along the east side of Foulness Island. It was the tide pouring over the sea-walls. Havengore Island, New England Island, Rushley, and Potton Islands disappeared save for the solitary farmhouses standing in the water, and an occasional knoll crowded with frightened beasts. Then the tide flowed over the sea-walls of the Roach River and across Wallasea Island to the River Crouch. Finally, little Bridgemarsh Island and the North Fambridge marshes for two miles to the west of it disappeared, the tide rolled up to the edge of the high ground, and the sea seemed to stretch from Kent to the foot of Latchingdon Hill.
With all practical observers the turn of the tide is the critical and significant moment; it is then that the auspices are good or bad. Smacksmen tell you that if it begins to rain at high water it will continue for the whole of the ebb. They will say to one another, ‘I doubt that’ll rain the ebb daown,’ or ‘We’re a goin’ to have an ebb’s rain.’ If it begins to rain at low water they say that they will have a ‘coarse flood.’ Again, on a calm summer morning, if it is high water at seven or eight, and the wind then springs up easterly, there will be an easterly wind all day. But if the tide is a midday one there will be no wind till high water. Sometimes it will blow freshly at high water when there has been no wind before, and though there may be none afterwards.
Fishermen who have got ashore on a sandbank in a bit of a sea declare that they can tell at once whether the tide is ebbing or flowing by the way the vessel bumps. On the flood-tide the sand is alive, but on the ebb it is dead and as hard as flint. Ask them for an explanation, and they will retort with further facts, such as that in a calm on the flood-tide the sand can be seen boiling up in the water, but never on the ebb. Again, they believe that frost checks the tides. They say it ‘nips’ them—a play upon the word ‘neap,’ which they use as a verb, and pronounce ‘nip.’ Dredgermen on the River Crouch will tell you that in winter, after a flood-tide with the wind easterly, the bottom of the river is ‘shet daown hard as a road,’ and the dredges slide over the bottom and will not lift the oysters. They cannot explain it. Undoubtedly an onshore wind and a flood-tide bring sand into the lower reaches, for the men find it in the dredges. On the other hand, some declare that the bed of the river is often hardened, where no sand is, as much as twelve miles from the sea.
No wonder that the tides are for the fishermen the standard of reference in all their conversation. They will say that such-and-such a thing happened about an hour before high water, or that the skipper of the Ladybird went ashore just as the vessels were swinging to the flood. If a skipper is asked when he is going to get under way, he will say, ’As soon as the tide serves’; or if asked why he did not arrive before, he will answer, ‘I could not save my tide.’
CHAPTER XVIII
‘From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,