Surfers on the bore

I did a bit of research into tides and equinoctials and new moons and everything last night, and it all very quickly got complicated. Basically, my understanding is that the full moon creates the highest tides. The equinoctial tides are on the full/new moons nearest the equinoxes. This spring, its the new moon thats on the equinox, so it wont be so big as if it were the full moon. This year we have a full moon 2 weeks either side of the equinox, so they are going to be about the same in March and April.
The Dee bore is created by the difference between the low tide and the high tide... its not just a high tide, you need a very low tide before it, so the water has to rush to catch up with itself... and they are about middayish.

So....... I figured  that there would be a smaller bore today, as a piece of leftover energy from yesterdays tide, the waves are bigger near the mouth of the estuary than at the end , so I went further out to see if this would equal itself out.

There were loads of people there! On the footbridge over the estuary. All waiting for the wave... there were surfers!

 It was a really good spot, although the wave was smaller than it would have been yesterday, being on the straight channel meant I could see it coming from way off, and build the tension.

The surfers were knocked off their boards.

And the good thing about being on a footbridge meant that I could see the wave passing under me and watch the river being conquered from the seaward side as well. Again, the transition from river to sea was simply seconds.

Everyone went home at that point, I hadnt intended to stay long but I had the dogs with me, so i crossed the bridge and walked upstream on the welsh side through the fields, rather than on the cycleway on the english side. I realised that the field was actually part of the flood plain, there was a hight tide mark along it, and seaweeed was dotted here and there in the grass.I walked for a while and turned back, and went to stand by the edge of the rising sea-water. And again, i felt the energy of it, it was like being plugged in to a source of static electricity, and it was greater if i faced into chester, into the direction that the water was being pulled. Feeling full of nwyfre... feeling the energy from the full moon flowing and pulling through my body.

Energised, I headed home :-)

Chasing the Dee Bore

A couple of days after the full moon comes the high tides, and the Dee estuary gives the second largest tidal bore, after the River Severn. I'd never previously known this or looked into the tides, but this month - and it just happened to be co-incidence that it is the last full moon before the equinox - I decided to have a look at this and go to the estuary to watch the tide turn.

I didn't plan anything, I thought at most that I'd sit on the banks and watch the tide turn and then sit for a while and see the estuary rise. It didn't turn out like that.

I worked out approximately what time the incoming tide would reach Chester, and went to the estuary, there were already several other people there waiting for it, so i walked further along and found a space on the bank where I could sit and wait. Silly me, I even threw a stick in at one point to see which way it was flowing in case I had missed it.

Then I heard the roaring.... the gulls downstream all flew up at once, and then I saw the wave come crashing along the banks... not a huge, surf-able wave, but a violent noisy wall of water - further out towards the sea it is higher, at this point it was a couple of feet maybe, and it rushed past me, and within a matter of seconds the lazy river had turned into proper sea, a good few feet higher already

WOW! I said, to myself, and I was caught up in the energy of the event, really excited and immediately decided to chase the bore upstream, so i jumped into my car and drove into town, to the weir - the weir had held the tide back, at the bottom it was all collecting and rising, soon it would break over the top - and within minutes the weir was defeated and submerged beneath the incoming tide.

I jumped back into the car and drove a few miles further upstream, I had no idea how far up it would go but I wanted to do this, caught up as i was. Parked up and across the fields i went, there didn't seem to be much happening, so I threw a stick in to test the current, it just stayed in the one place neither going upstream or down, so i hung on for a bit , and then - it was off! slowly at first going inland, but picking up speed, so I followed the river inland, on foot, being overtaken by ducks and canoeists, none of whom were paddling but being carried upstream faster than I was walking.

The further inland i went, the more diffused the energy got, the head of the energy being the crest of the tide, and as I walked i though about all that energy being diffused into the land, bringing Spring with it. After reaching Ecclestone I decided I'd gone far enough and reluctantly headed back... the river was still flowing fast in reverse, and part of me wanted to carry on with it, and another part of me wanted to return back to the places i had stopped before and photograph the changes in water level. Anyway, I turned back and walked back to where the car was parked, but I stopped at a favourite spot of mine near there and sat at the waters edge for a while.

I actually felt it.
Watching the river flowing upstream... something changed... there was nothing visual that I could reference to or check with, but i felt as if it had passed, that the tide had turned... nothing in the flow of the river or the water levels could prove this to me, but I figured it was time to go, so i went back to the car and drove back to the weir, took some more photos and them went back to the estuary where i had started... and it actually had started to go out. The water was flowing out to sea again, at some point on my way back it had caught up and reversed itself, and here I was watching it on its way out again.

It was half past two in the afternoon, I'd been out 3 and a half hours, I got home and I was really tired, really suddenly. Drained. But really pleased to have been part of this and shared in the energy of the occasion, feeling its ebb and flow.

I'd managed to take some before/during/after photos -

Starting at the estuary just outside Chester -

BEFORE-

DURING-

AFTER -

And the weir....

 DURING -

AND AFTER -