Dan Foster Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I have a morbid curiosity to get out and paddle along a low-lying area during an astronomical high tide (a King Tide), to see first-hand the flooding that occurs, and reflect on what that means for the next century along our beloved coastline. Unfortunately (for me and for shoreline property owners) the highest tides in 2019 will occur around noon in the winter, and around midnight in October. Neither options are great for paddling through flooded streets. But NSPN loves an excuse for lunch, so if there's interest, I'll organize a noon-time walk with accompanying lunch, somewhere in Boston or along the North Shore, on one of the first four dates listed in the table below. Those are NOAA tide predictions for Boston, for dates with greater than 12ft high tides. Times for Salem Harbor and other potential meeting spots are similar. Date Day Time Pred(Ft) 2019/01/22 Tue 11:45 *12.12 2019/01/23 Wed 12:38 *12.04 2019/02/20 Wed 11:29 *12.11 2019/02/21 Thu 12:22 *12.01 2019/08/03 Sat 01:11 *12.01 2019/08/31 Sat 00:00 *12.03 2019/09/01 Sun 00:54 *12.05 If you're interested, get in touch and we'll figure out which date and location works best. Here's a map with photos of potential impacted areas to visit: https://mycoast.org/ma/king-tides/photos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detorres Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Dan Great idea. Thanks for the table of king tides. A favorite trip for me is up the Neponset River . At the highest tides you can paddle right up to the base of the Baker Chocolate factory dam. You can put in at the gas tanks , at the MIlton Yacht club (parking will be flooded) , or at the park on the corner of Ganite and Hill Top streets in Dorchester. Pablo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaneC Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I’d be interested depending on weather Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Foster Posted January 10, 2019 Author Share Posted January 10, 2019 Pablo and anyone else interested in getting a table of "interesting" tides: Go to the NOAA tides page for your favorite location. Here is Salem, MA: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/noaatidepredictions.html?id=8442645 Click the Click Here for Annual Published Tide Tables button in the upper right corner. If you have an idea for what constitutes a "really big tide" (12 ft in Boston, 11 in Salem) you can enter that number in the Threshold box, and then ask for a text output instead of PDF. Search for the asterisk * in the resulting text to see all of the tides above the threshold you entered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Berkovitz Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I like the idea, although the paddling option sounds fun if conditions permit. +1 on the Neponset River. I like industrial paddles. Another option is the whole Lynn Shore Drive waterfront promenade. It's a very nice walk with great views out to the Graves and beyond, and the water should come right up to the sidewalk at that tide level. If there are any kind of conditions at the time, water will be coming up on the roadway for sure. If there happens to be swell coming in that day, you can come up to Marblehead and watch water shooting out between the houses near Fort Beach, plus see our seawall be destroyed again just after it was rebuilt ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rmrand Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Dan, Hi. I could do the Feb. dates, but not the Jan. dates. Your curiosity is infectious. Romaine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prudenceb Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 Keep me in the loop! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 Intriguing, Dan. I've never done an industrial paddle--I'd love to join if the date and time work with my school schedule... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue H. Posted January 14, 2019 Share Posted January 14, 2019 Hi Dan, I would be interested in the viewing from land option, as my drysuit is currently in CA for repairs, etc. Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetL Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 Interested, if you end up with a weekend date! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NPearson Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Keep me in the loop, you can get to some unexpected places on a very high tide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BethS Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 I'm interested if I am free, great idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Berkovitz Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 Even though it's not quite a king tide today, it's plenty high with the storm conditions on top of the tide. Big sets are rolling in every 5 minutes or so. Here are some pictures I just took on Front St in Marblehead near Fort Sewall at the tip of the harbor. This whole area is still being repaired from last March's storms, but it's taking a whack today: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Foster Posted January 21, 2019 Author Share Posted January 21, 2019 Thanks, Joe, for the photos! Here's the forecast for the Marblehead area for this week's king tides on Tuesday and Wednesday, noonish: Tuesday NW wind 10 to 14 kt, with gusts as high as 22 kt. Sunny. Seas 2 to 3 ft. Tuesday Night WNW wind 6 to 8 kt becoming SSW after midnight. Increasing clouds. Seas around 1 ft. Wednesday SSW wind 9 to 14 kt, with gusts as high as 20 kt. Rain and snow likely, becoming all rain after 11am. Seas 2 to 3 ft. Neither day looks particularly pleasant for paddling, at least to me. If anyone wanted to get lunch amidst the destruction, Tuesday is probably the nicer day (plus you get an extra inch of tide). How much ice and snow did you all get on the North Shore or Boston area? Is it walkable? I'm game for Tuesday lunch somewhere along the water, or given that many of us will see each other at the winter party on Saturday, we could cross our fingers and wait for February's two big tide days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue H. Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Thanks for the heads up Dan and yes interested in Feb. and Joe, thanks for the pics ! I am contemplating a high tide viewing today, had an obligation yesterday. Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC Carpenter Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 Dan, Thank you for the King Tide dates and times, as well as the tides and currents web site. Very valuable and interesting. Cliff in Champlain Valley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Berkovitz Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 (edited) So, back to this thread again: Wednesday (Feb. 20) will bring us a high "king" tide in Marblehead of 11.5 feet at 11:29 am, the highest water we'll get until September 1. The weather also looks very promising with a big high pressure system centered over Eastern MA. The current forecast is for sun, high around 30, wind 5-7 kt decreasing to light/variable, seas <= 1 ft. With this in mind, I propose to paddle out of Riverhead Beach in Marblehead at 10 am (meet at 9.30 am, beach brief at 9.50 am). A likely route would be to paddle around Marblehead Neck and out to Tinkers Island, with the idea of crossing the narrow isthmus that divides the island at high tide (only doable at extreme high tide levels like this). Lunch on the beach on Tinkers, then return to Riverhead around 2.30 - 3 pm. Although not a rock gardening trip per se, all the familiar rock landscapes of the area have a very different character at super-high tides like this and many otherwise-shallow or nonexistent passages become navigable. We also have an option to view the recent seawall repairs in Marblehead Harbor around the Front Beach rock garden, observe where the water level comes up to, and optionally make cynical, world-weary remarks about man-versus-nature and climate change. This trip is a common adventure for paddlers with cold-weather experience, not a leader-led trip. I am only acting as the trip organizer. Of course dry suits, fully rigged boats with built-in flotation, sprayskirts, PFDs are all required. Bring gear that you know will keep you warm in air temps of 30 F or -- since it might matter -- a water temp just below 40. Gloves, pogies, balaclavas... whatever works for you. Don't assume the wind will be nonexistent, although I'm happy that's the forecast. If you are interested please respond by Tuesday midday at the latest. If I have not paddled with you before please private-message me first. Also note: unless the trip is cancelled we will start on time, for real. It should be beautiful, and fun! ...Joe Edited February 19, 2019 by Joseph Berkovitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Berkovitz Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 Well, there were no takers, as it happened, but I did go out today anyway. At first, I was not expecting to paddle, because the air was like 20 degrees F at 10 am and there was still about 10 knots of NW wind. The forecast had been too optimistic. So I went for a walk (sans boat) on Devereux Beach just to be outside for a while, where I saw some incredible solar halos in a hazy sunny sky. By the time I got back to my car the wind had really died down and the temperature had moderated somewhat. I checked the buoy data and the high pressure had maxed out: the system was directly overhead. The water was looking pond-like, there was almost no swell, and it felt like a rare and pleasing set of conditions. At which point I drove back home, loaded the boat, and launched from Little Harbor in Marblehead. With the calm conditions it was a very meditative, quiet paddle. Thousands of ducks were gathered offshore, emitting a spooky collective warble in the distance. These super-high tides always make me feel like I just unlocked a new level in a video game. All these passages suddenly appeared and became navigable, and the unusually calm ocean made it easy to wander freely through them. With multiple fleecy layers under my drysuit, and pogies plus gloves, I was quite warm. I made my way down Marblehead Neck to Tinkers Island. Thanks to the delay in starting I missed actual high water, but a pair of converging strand lines on both sides of the island proved that there indeed had been water across the top of Tinker's an hour before. Like, maybe an inch or two of water . For future reference, I guess you need tides greater than 11.5' if you don't want to seal-portage your way across. The sky grew cloudy and wooly. A cold wind picked up again, now from the south with the high having moved offshore. I looked at the city in the distance, then launched and headed back to the harbor. I chatted there with a Marblehead lobsterman who lost his boat in one of last year's storms; part of it washed up on Brown's Island for a while. He's still working on repairing it, but he's philosophical about it despite the hardship and the long process of bringing it back to seaworthiness. I see him pretty often and it was nice to run into him today. Anyway, today was a really nice trip, if you like this kind of thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Foster Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 Glad to hear you got out (and back)! You're the king of tides until someone else ventures out above 11.5 feet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Foster Posted November 3, 2021 Author Share Posted November 3, 2021 Bumping this in case anyone is near the coast this weekend: King tides (12.1+ ft in Boston Harbor) at 12:41PM (noonish) on Sat, Oct 6, 2021, and at 12:32PM on Sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Berkovitz Posted November 3, 2021 Share Posted November 3, 2021 (edited) I will be paddling out of Marblehead on Saturday morning and visiting rock features in the area that are notable in high water. If people are interested and have cold-water paddling experience, please PM me. Edited November 3, 2021 by Joseph Berkovitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts