Way out there!

  The other day, Mark and I were on the pier when he made the remark that the tide was sure low.  Yes, it was.  The north wind had blown the water far out from the shore which would have made it most difficult to fish from the pier.  At that precise moment, the water under the pier was probably only about six inches deep.  I was telling him about some of the times in the past when the water was even lower.  That during those times, there was NO water under the pier.  He had not seen the tide be this low since each time had occurred while he was out of town.  I think he might have thought I was exaggerating a tad but, no, it was really that low of a tide.  

   I had taken pictures of some of the lower tides but for the life of me, could not find them.  Then, today, I stumbled across several!  Aha!  I knew that I had not imagined this phenomenon!  I had proof that I was not slap batty!  When I showed him the photographs, he was astounded.  The tide was, indeed, LOW!  In fact, you might even have said..."there was no water".  

  Our pier is a tad longer than 200 feet in length.  Granted nigh on 100 of those feet are stretched out over marsh grass but the other 100 or so span the water from the marsh outward.  A normal low tide may see the water exposing mudflats for ten feet or so from the marsh.  The particular tide that I photographed showed that the water was far, far from the marsh...why, it was even far, far from the end of the pier. There was no water beneath our pier nor was there any for another hundred out from the pier!  Mark estimated that the water must have been nearly two hundred feet from the shoreline when I took the photographs.  Yep, that was some low tide.  There could be no fishing from the pier on that day nor any day when the tide was out this far!

  The photographs here were taken five years ago.  The tide does get this low most every year during winter when we have strong north winds.  The wind pushes the water out from the Bay exposing mudflats. It is a time for birds and mammals to feast upon the trapped minnows and crustaceans.  It is also a time for me to be in awe at the power of Mother Nature!