It has been different, cruising in a sea without tidal rise and fall. We can pull into a little bay, drop anchor in sufficient depth, and that’s it! No calculations of how far the sea level will drop and rise overnight, and how much our anchor chain will move towards the shore at low water, or shorten and pull out at high water.
There is the scary Swedish option of pointing the bow at the rocks and stepping off, tying up to the shore with an anchor off the stern – you have to know those rocks drop straight down below.
Then there are the different types of harbour berths – wooden piles to drop a rope over and drive the bow onto a quay,
or stern buoys to hook and tie on as you manoeuvre past,
and our preferred low(er) adrenaline option of tying alongside.
None of these work well in tidal waters. There, we are most likely to tie up to a floating pontoon that rises and falls with the tide.
However, (and there is always a however), it’s not quite as simple as no tide at all.
Baltic charts depths are based on the average, not the lowest astronomical tide, as in our home waters. This is because there is after all a rise and fall, but it is due to weather factors – atmospheric pressure and swell.
An interesting Swedish meteorological site (www.smhi.se) predicts the daily rise and fall in sea level in different areas, and we looked at this every day, to make sure we weren’t in lower water than on the charts.
Until we arrived in tidal Denmark. How refreshing to once again look at tidal curves, and see little tides of 15cm up and down. Nothing to worry about there while we are tied alongside, compared to up to 5m at home. And we stopped checking sea level. After all, now we had tides.
But on Monday, we tied alongside in Middelfart harbour at high water, and this happened:
Just as we reached the time of low water, there was a huge drop in sea level, and we found ourselves a metre lower than when we arrived in port. We couldn’t even get off the boat! Worse than that the ropes were pinned tightly to the quay, and we were sure we were shortly going to be hanging in the air.
As carefully as possible, William eased the mooring lines one by one and slowly we settled back into the water.
Another lesson learnt. There may be no tides in the Baltic, but there are many ways to change the depth.
After all that you will be checking sea levels and river levels constantly even when back on dry land in September!
Glad to know your lifelong learning is continuing effectively! Rxx
Golly gosh, so much to think about, I’ll bet that was a big heart-in-the-mouth easing those bar taut lines. No such melodramas here in Maidstone!