For the last 3 years I have been celebrating what has now become an annual summer ritual: finding some cool spot, timing my arrival with the changing of a tide, setting up my camera rig, and spending 5 - 6 hours contemplating a bit of everything while my camera takes a picture of the changing tide every 5 seconds. This ritual I have baptized as my summer moment of zen (all credit of the “Moment of Zen” concept goes to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show).

This summer I coincided my excursion with a perigean spring tide.

Oh what is a perigean spring tide you ask? It is when a spring tide (nothing to do with the season but when there is a FULL moon or NEW moon) coincides with the moon closest to the earth in its orbit (perigee). Let me draw you a picture:

On august 3rd the moon was only 603,305 KM from the earth and coincided with an almost new moon causing a gravitational double whammy, bulging tides to higher and lower levels than are normally witnessed (a tidal differential of nearly 4 meters):

So I got up early and positioned myself on a nice perch overlooking the bay of the Eo River:

and setup my camera rig (camera, solar panel, Mexican blanket, and a thermos of coffee):

and hung out from 07:45 and until 12:45:

Here is how it was when I arrived and when I left:

And then i combined all the pictures into a timelapse video:

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).