Weird Harold wrote:EdThomas wrote:The point I was trying to make earlier in this post is that the throat is so narrow, relative to the enormous volume of Howell Bay, that not enough water can flow in during high tide on the Charis Sea, or out during low tide on the Charis sea, to change the level of Howell bay by more than an inch or two. Hence, no significant tide in Howell Bay!
Philip Stanley wrote:Howell Bay has a narrow opening in western end the Throat but more importantly IMHO is the very shallow section to the east. It almost looks like a river delta. Soooo...Howell Bay may indeed have no tides or very small tides if any. I'd say Howell Bay is similar to the Baltic
Everyone seems to be ignoring the topography of the various points of interest. IIRC, the Bay of Fundy has such extreme tides because the configuration of the bottom of the bay. I don't recall the particulars, but it is something like a deep entrance and rapid shelving to shore that causes the extreme tides.
In the case of Safehold, a narrow but deep entrance will pass the same amount of tidal flow as a wide but shallow entrance of the same cross-sectional area. (EG a ten-meter wide by one-meter deep passage will pass the same amount of water as a one-meter wide by ten-meter deep passage.) At least in theory; I know that tides don't always use the entire passage and water flows at different rates at different depths and bottom conditions.
Without knowing the depth of any given passage, we can't make any valid assumptions about the amount of tidal flow that will be allowed. Even then, it would require detailed knowledge of the bottom topography to determine the effects of turbulence and resistance.
Tides are much more complex phenomena than most people (I speak of the population in general, of course, not the brilliant individuals who read
my books
) think. The location of a given spot in terms of latitude can have a significant effect; so (as has been pointed out) can the constriction (or lack thereof) of a narrow passage connecting a given body of water to a larger body of water. Virtually any body of water large enough to be called a "sea," however, will have at least
some tide, even though it may be measured in single-digit inches. Some examples have already been given in earlier posts on this thread. The rise and fall of the tide in Shwei Bay and Howell Bay are much smaller than those of the Great Western Ocean, for example, but they do exist. And, yes, the Throat and the Shweimouth Passage are both going to be lively places, although nowhere near up to Bay of Fundy standards, both the Gulf of Dohlar and the Sea of Charis have relatively low tidal ranges. The Throat is 58 miles wide at Lock Island (approximately equal to the Bay of Fundy's entire width) and exceptionally deep at its western end at the Bay of Howell, where width drops to only about 20 miles. Thus what Ed has called the "tidal current" is strong but not exactly overwhelming at either point along the passage and there is no equivalent of the Bay of Fundy's tidal bores. And, as he has also pointed out, you can only get so much water through a given opening, no matter how fierce the current, which also helps to account for the low tides on Shwei Bay and Howell Bay. There simply isn't enough water exchange to drive a heavy tide in either location, irrespective of the tides in the Sea of Charis and the Gulf of Dohlar.
Yes, tides exist on Howell Bay. Yes, really canny seamen will try to take advantage of even gentle tides. And, yes, Cayleb was making a joke with Sharley in an effort to diffuse some of the intense emotion both of them were feeling at the moment.
There is actually a point in HFQ where this entire issue of tides and tidal ranges is addressed and plays a major role in the action. Further than that deponent saith no more.
BTW: Hope I got the attributions right when I spread out the quotes!
