The Bay of Fundy Coastline

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Saturday October 3, 2009:  Weather last night allowed camping for the first time on this trip.  Fortunately, I was able to make it to the Cape Split / Scots Bay area just in time to sit up camp on a small cliff overlooking the bay.  Since I had printed off the tidal charts to bring with me, I already knew I was arriving almost exactly at peak low tide.  Careful where you sent up camp because the Bay of Fundy has the highest tidal changes of anywhere in the world!  While most of us have witnessed a normal 3-4' tidal change at the beach, the geographical layout of the bay causes extreme tidal shifts in the 41-48' range between low and high tide. 

Scotts Bay Pier: Fishing boats, on the Bay of Fundy,  have to schedule their departure and arrival into home port with the tide as most harbors don't have any water during low tide.  Boat owners have to prop the boats up to prevent them from falling over when the harbors dry out and the boat ends up sitting on the somewhat dry ocean floor.  The picture above, taken at Scotts Bay pier, shows lobster pots waiting for high tide to allow the boat in/out of port. 

The Lady Chantel: The picture below, taken on the backside of the same pier, shows the "Lady Chantel" sitting on the harbor floor during low tide.  Here she'll sit for another 5-6 hours until the arrival of the next high tide which will occur around 1:00am on this particular day.  The boats owner brings her along the mainland side of the pier and secures her during high tide to allow the boat to settle to the soft sandy bottom instead of the unforgiving rocks on the seaward side. 

Burncoat Head:  (B) on the map above.  Home of the highest recorded tidal change in the world.  So here I was on the Bay of Fundy, minding my own business, when I realized that normal people don't get to see 100 billion tonnes of seawater flowing back and forth in front of their kitchen windows every day. As someone who didn't grow up on a coastline, it's almost unfathonable for me to imagine how much water that is.  Let me say it again; "100 billion tonnes of water" flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy during each tidal cycle and that occurs twice daily!  How much is 100 billion tonnes of water you ask?  It's more than the combined flow of all the world's freshwater rivers! 

To help illustrate, take a look at the island at Burncoat Head pictured above. This is what it looked like upon my arrival around 12:30pm.  The picture below, taken only a couple of hours later, starts to give you an idea of the volulme of water that moves in and out. Keep in mind that a full tidal change takes approximately 6 hours and 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, I had not the time to wait for low tide, but given the amount of water moving in just a couple hours, I can only imagine the view after another four hours of receding water.

Visitors can see two extraordinary high and low tides every 24 hours. As such, you can reasonably expect to see at least one high and one low tide during daylight hours. Tide times move ahead approximately one hour each day, and tide times vary slightly for different locations around the Bay.

Again, keep in mind these pictures represent only about two hours worth of tidal change versus the the complete.  Maybe I can get the time to capture the full effect later on my way back.

Twice everyday the Bay fills and empties of its 100 billion tonnes of water, creating the highest tides in the world. The height of the tide is about (11ft) along the southwest shore of Nova Scotia and steadily increases as the floodwaters travel up the 174 miles of shoreline to the head of the Bay where in the Minas Basin the height of the tide can reach 53 feet.