Friday, April 23, 2010

Tide and snorkeling

I did a little research online and it sounds like we should be trying to time our snorkeling from about an hour before high tide until high tide.  I found a tide schedule (http://www.mobilegeographics.com:81/calendar/year/4998.html)  and learned all about tides.  I learned that the high tide  is highest the day after a full moon and then each high tide is lower than the last until the next full moon.  There will be a full moon this Wednesday so I'm thinking that Thursday at high tide will be the best snorkeling of the month.  That might explain why we didnt see anything yesterday.  The high tides (there are 2 a day, once during the light and once during the dark) are at different times every day so I bookmarked the tide schedule webpage.  They get later every day starting, again, on the full moon.  That means that after the full moon, we need to get our butts out there at 6 or 7 am to get the good snorkeling.  Until the full moon, we will be going out in the afternoon and today we will give it a shot at 2pm since high tide is at 2:55.  I hope this is right...it seems to make sense.

Captain Lonny told us that the full moon is the best time to catch tons of huge snapper.  He said he went out once and caught 25 yellowtail snappers between 17lbs and 60 lbs.

See kids, science can be fun and useful!

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