I've been told that there are charts that are available (from who or where is what I'm after) that show which direction the water will be flowing due to tidal movement. I know about tide tables, but these other charts apparently have quite a bit of detail, arrows and possibly colors.

I work with a group of Venture Scouts and we are heading out to do a sea kayaking trip in the San Juan Islands (Washington) in July and I'm looking for some detail on the tide flows.

First is there such a thing, and second do you know where they can be found. I figure you float plane guys or avid boaters would know about these.

Thanks,

Paul

Try this
http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer ... able.shtml

Tim

You might try this also:
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... &TypeAhead

Order an Evergreen Atlas from West Marine--the charts in there are fairly current, and there aren't a lot of changes from year to year. The NOAA charts are obviously the best source, but they're unbelievably expensive, but West has those, also.

What part of the San Juans? That's one of my favoritist vacation spots. Read about my own adventure in my 19' Sea Ray--The Ultimate Small Boat Adventure, $15.95 at Barnes & Noble, or can be ordered by other book stores--24 days and nights on the boat, with my Golden Retriever Maggie as my companion, through the San Juans, the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast to Desolation Sound, Princess Louisa, and other points north. We've also chartered a 32' Nordic Tug twice and toured the San Juans and Gulf Islands, and made another trip to Princess Louisa (which incidentally is without any doubt the single most beautiful place on Earth).

Cary

OK, thanks everyone. I will give those charts a try. I've seen the NOAA charts and I have a couple for the area where we are headed. These other suggestions seem good.

For the trip, we are riding the ferry with boats out to Orcas Island, and from there are kayaking west to Jones, Spieden, Stewart Island, back to Jones and then to Friday Harbor to catch the ferry back to Anacortes. It is five days long and should be a pretty good time. Now just the prayers for some decent weather.

In that area, I don't think currents will be a big issue. There's a lot of shore camping available--just remember to camp above the tide line! And even if the weather doesn't cooperate, you'll have a great time.

Cary

Cary wrote:The NOAA charts are obviously the best source, but they're unbelievably expensive, but West has those, also.

What isn't expensive at West Marine?

This is likely too late to help but the very best charts for where you are going are the Washburn Tables published by the Canadian Government. It is two parts, a book that have about 100 pages of different flows and a table that gets published each year to tell you what page to open at for a given time and day.

The table can also be found free here http://www.epiphyte.ca/proj/currents

Hey dude....... Not sure if it was mentioned, but try some of the surfing web sites/forums. I watched a show on surfing a while back and remember them talking about a website they use to look for and watch for high tide wave rolling across the ocean. Very interesting stuff.

If anyone is carrying a smart phone there is a good app called 'US Tides.'. It shows real time a predicted tides and currents for your local area.

Enjoy the trip, the San Juans are a fav of mine.

I don't know about particular tidals "flows" for particular locations versus just high and low tides (and in between), but my Garmin 196 has a page with some sort of tide tables. The only time I've ever peeked at it are while I'm flying somewhere, and I couldn't get a quick grasp of how to read them so just gave up. I never remember to check it out on the ground later, when I can devote 100% attention to figgering it out.