Tide explanations for mariners and home owners in Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte.
Just about every mariner I sell a house to asks me the question on what the tide swing is. Certainly, an important question for anyone with a sailboat or deep draft water craft or in a shallow water canal system. It also is important depending on where your waterfront home is located. In most canal systems, you will not need to worry about tide heights to come and go from your dock, especially Punta Gorda Isles and Burnt Store Isles! However, there are locations where losing 2 feet or more of tide may cause an issue getting out of the canal or possibly allowing you to drop your boat lift in the water far enough to allow the boat to float off. This second scenario is important to understand when buying a house because in some cases the boat lift is very near your seawall or bank and that of course, is where the water will be the shallowest. If your boat lift cradle bottoms out you may need to wait for a higher tide to get your boat out. I know what to watch for with problem situations for shallow water and your boat lift and what canals are most likely to present a problem. There are also private dredges you can arrange to address problem situations if your dockside water is too shallow.
Now, on to the most important point of this article for sailboat and power boat folks: What is the tidal swing for Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte and Charlotte Harbor? On average it is 2 feet. That’s all. For experienced blue water sailors you may have experienced tide swings as high as 8 feet or more but likely never less than 2 feet. Two feet is the magic number but the tidal swing or height does vary depending on wind direction, moon phase, day of the month and time of year. Also, important to know for the experienced mariner, there may be only 1 high tide and 1 low tide a day so your “tide watch” is useless here. On most tidal bodies there are 2 highs and 2 lows and you can pretty much set your clock to it. In those situations, each day the high and low tides shift about 55 minutes ahead and this is year around. Charlotte Harbor and tides in Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte are not so predictable. Some days the tides are nearly flat for the entire day with a slow gradual incoming or outgoing tide. On most days however the tide follows a 2 high and 2 low tide schedule with about 55 minutes increase each day. However, you can only predict flat tide days or 2 tide days by looking at a proper tide chart showing the entire tide curve not a small card you find free in boat stores that has simply highs and lows in numerical format. My best explanation of this is we in southwest Florida have water surrounding the entire state. The gulf stream has its pattern on the gulf side as well. With that said with the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream water flows affecting each other our end result is tides affected by nature that do not follow tide models found in other areas.
General rules for mariners regarding tides:
- Tides will be higher in the summer and higher with wind pushed water with south and west winds. Charlotte Harbor is a big bowl with a large inlet/outlet. Extra water can be pushed in and pushed out and remain temporarily trapped.
- Tides will be lower in winter in general especially with a north or northeast wind which pushes water out of the harbor and consequently out of the canals.
- Tides we be extra high or low on a full moon and possibly on a new moon.
