The Tide

                                 Commencement Bay the home of Tacoma Washington

On Friday morning while I was walking around the Gig Harbor waterfront I started thinking about the tide. This day the tide was high while earlier in the week it was low.

I think about the tide on some occasions and I like it when it is high because I can see the ducks on the harbor along with seagulls. Hard for the ducks to do anything when the tide is low while the seagulls can fly around; another problem when the tide is low is at the two creeks at the head of the harbor. Since the water is low the salmon do not try going up the creek so neither the ducks or seagulls can try to catch one of them. I have seen the ducks and seagulls hanging out patiently when the tide is at medium level as well as high. I find it quite the scene to see.

On Friday I only saw a few seagulls while on other occasions I have seen many of them. The times I get interested is when they decide being on the roofs of the marinas. They can make a nasty sound especially when taking off into the sky.

Another group I see often but did not on Friday is the Canadian geese. They can make quite the noise as well and can leave a good mess too. I remember that a lot when I was a kid and they would spend time on our dock. I did not like that when I came down to take a boat out or going fishing on the dock. These days there is a couple parks on the waterfront so this is where they spend their time as a group just hanging out.

This time walking around the harbor on Friday with the high tide I started thinking about my dad and how he spent a lot of time looking at the tide charts seeing  where the tide would be during the day and the week. His main purpose looking at the tide charts had to do with his love of sailing and the races that were coming up that he would be in. He looked at the charts so the tides would give him the best advantage in the race. Since I am no expert especially like him I am not sure why but the tides would give him strategy to win the coming race. I am sure where the tide was at had a lot to do with how much wind would happen at the same time.  This strategy must have worked because he won a lot of races. He did the same thing though when we would go out in the sailboat just to have a fun time. I believe the level of the tide would tell him which direction to go before we would head the direction he wanted us to go. I know there were times when he got outside the harbor we would start heading south for a little while before going east and then north. He did not want us to head straight east before going north if the tide and the winds were making the winds light. I liked it a lot when the winds were heavy instead of light. I did not mind it being light after a little while as long as we had heavy winds at the beginning. In my mind it had a lot to do with the weather. If the sun was out and bright sailing slow was OK. Also depended a lot where we were going on that day; when we just out for the day going around Commencement Bay or heading east then north toward Vashon Island the wind did not matter so much to me though heavier was more fun for sure. The trips where we were sailing for the weekend going to Seattle or Bremerton the light winds were torture for me. We could not eat until we arrived either place. Oh was I hungry on so many occasions.

The tide charting that dad did sure brings back some really good memories even the times where we sat and the boat was drifting for several hours or in my mind for days.