I took a day off from this blogging addiction to visit my dad for Father's Day. The folks aren't into this new-fangled computer stuff, so I was incomunicado for a day. He put in an order for buffalo wings so I cooked up 20 lbs for a Dad's day feast. Eating wings until you can't move is one of life's little pleasures.
While I was in my old home town, there was a full moon with the resulting "spring tide". Spring tides are the strongest tides of the month and they occur during full and new moons. During a spring tide, the sun, moon, and earth line up in essentially a straight line to produce very high high tides and very low low tides. The name "spring tide" has nothing to do with the season of the same name. Spring tides occur every month of the year.
The opposite of a spring tide is the "neap tide" which occurs on quarter and three quarter moons. During a neap tide, the sun, moon, and earth line up in a 90 degree angle that causes very little tide change between high tide and low tide.
The spring tide this weekend was very obvious from the top of the 312 bridge that crosses the intracoastal waterway near St.Augustine. The grassy saltmarsh was almost completely underwater at high tide. Conversely, at low tide, that same marsh was drained.
Tides are incredibly important in flushing nutrients in and out of the estuary. The tides carry the eggs of fish, crabs, and shrimp in and out of the marsh dispersing them over broad areas. Speaking of shrimp...
It will soon be shrimping season...let's hope those tasty crustaceans are getting all the nutrients they need to grow! I am going to add a link over to the right called "Jethro's Shrimping Page. I don't know Jethro, but he has a nice website about recreational shrimping.
Tomorrow I have to make Minorcan Clam Chowder out of a hundred plus Cedar Key Farm Raised Clams. A friend of mine loaded me up with a bag of the little beauties, so I know what supper will be tomorrow night. I will run an article on Cedar Key clam farming in the near future, after I get some photos.
2 comments:
I love it! Thank you so much for the correlation between the moon and the types of tides, along with their names. I'm going to have to copy this so I can absorb it. So much I want to learn, and you're helping that wish come true. (I do know some Indian names for the monthly moons. They're in my novel, if I ever find an agent.)
By the way, when you get a chance, please go to my site and check the latest entry under "Awesome Things."
Thanks Darlene. I always go and check out the blogs of folks you mention. I really enjoy seeing the different perspectives. There's a lot of blogs out there and alot of them seem to be false starts, commercial sites, or teen-age angst sites. It's nice to get recommendations. I wish Blogger had some kind of index where you could scroll through blog titles instead of blindly doing "next blog". Take care.
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