The Editor,
We check the ShraplTide app before we decide if Shady Island is safe to visit. ShraplTide indicates if the tide is going up or down, and the two low and two high tides for the day.
It works when you hold your iPhone vertically. When you tip your phone horizontally, a series of waves indicate the height of the tides.
As I write this, it is 21: 15 on a Wednesday night. The tide is at 4.23m and going down. It will be at 3.02m at 0: 54 and then the tide will rise again.
I can check four days worth of tide tables, calculated for Steveston. Thursday, July 5 at 14: 05 was a good day to visit Shady Island; the tide was at a low of 0.87.
By about 16: 00, most of the weir will be covered - that is your last opportunity to get back to the mainland.
There was a short window of opportunity on Friday at 14: 46, when the low tide is at 1.06m.
Generally we don't go over unless the low tide is well below 1m.
We've stood on the rocks of the weir when the tide was at 1.5m and watched it creep up around our feet. The water laps a few times in the same place, and then suddenly it's higher.
Three laps later, and it's higher again. You don't want to risk crossing sharp, slippery rocks with a rapidly rising tide.
There are not many days of the year when the tide is low enough to give you a long time frame to visit Shady Island.
However, if you do get out there, snack on some of the salmon berries growing profusely there, and then head out to the mile-long sandy beach, rimmed by slowly decaying WWII wharfs, and dotted with several wooden shipwrecks, ribs splayed wide open.
In one wreck, iron nails are rusting into the sand below, while grass grows lushly out of its middle.
Another wreck has an old sixcylinder engine that is uncovered at low tide.
At the far end of the beach you can see a tall, bare tree crowned by a bald eagle's nest with a busy eagle family in it.
Shady Island is a wonderful adventure - just watch your tide tables!
Gudrun Heckerott Steveston
