A walk on the tide line, sunbathing in the soft sand, surrounding your sand castle with a river of seawater ... it's all possible on our wide beach, both at high and low tide ...
At the beach, you always have to deal with the tide. Between high and low tide, the sea water level can vary more than 4 metres!
During low tide, the water moves away, during high tide, the water rises up to the tide line. That is where you will find most of the things that wash up.
When is it high or low tide?
On the coast, De Panne always has high water first, then Nieuwpoort and Ostend about 15 minutes later.
Twice a day, there is low tide and high tide with about 6 hours between them.
The tide book?
The booklet is presented by the Coastal Division of the Agency for Maritime Services and the Coast.
A complex phenomenon, explained in a simple way
When it is low tide in our country, what about in England? You would think they have high tide. But nothing could be further from the truth: the water enters from the Atlantic Ocean via the strait of Calais to the North Sea. And both our coast and the opposite coast of England have more or less simultaneous high tides.
Twice a month, there is a spring tide, as well as the dead tide. This is mainly due to the moon's attraction to the earth and the position of the sun and the moon in relation to the earth.
When the Earth, the moon and the sun are in a straight line opposite each other, we speak of spring tide (during a full or new moon).
If they are angled to each other, the tide is dead (during half moon).
On 21 September and 21 March, the beginning of autumn and spring, the moon is closest to the earth. The great spring tide of the equinox, the moment when day and night are equally long, then sets in.
