Re: [Paddlewise] Reading the water

Hi Melinda,

The confusion is because you were probably right; when you got to your
put-in. The current was ebbing... there. However by the time you got out to
the main river or paddled a ways on your journey the current was on the
flood... there. You didn't misread the current, you just misread when it was
due to change in the area you were paddling.

What we think of as a tide is just a moving stream of water and it takes
time to move from one portion of a confined area (like a river or bay or
estuary) to another. So at the mouth of the Columbia the current could be on
the flood and at Portland it could still be ebbing. The same goes for long
tributaries or sloughs.  Your tugboat operator may have been thinking about
a nearby station when he told you the tide was flooding but you drove far
enough upriver to be in an area where the tide was still ebbing (but
probably soon to change to flood).

Also, very narrow branches of the main stream can have extremely sluggish
current and not mirror very well the current in the main channel. So it's
probably not a good idea to judge current by what you see in a slough.

It's pretty common to have confusion about just exactly what the tide is
doing in a river and that's one reason why I specifically bought a GPS (the
Garmin 72) that will give me tides. It doesn't give me the exact tide for
where I am on the river but instead gives me tides from nearby tide stations
and I have to interpolate. But it's still darn handy for times when I am
disremembering the exact tides for that place and time.

Next time you go paddle check the tide and current at a point near where you
are going to put in and use that for your planning. You can just do an
Internet search for "columbia river tide" (or current) and that should give
you a few choices.

Craig Jungers
Royal City, WA


On 9/26/06, Bernerts <mbernert_at_comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I have question for all you seasoned yakkers ( and please don't laugh) :
> How do you read the current?
> One night some friends and I were out on a tributary of the Columbia
> River. Dh
> told me the current was ebbing so to head up river first. When we got to
> our
> put in spot, it looked like it was flooding so we headed downriver first.
> Our
> return trip was much tougher ! Dh was right. He's a tugboat operator so I
> should've listened to him.
> So why did it look like it was heading the opposite direction. There was
> very
> little wind. Anyone else have this problem?
>
> Thanks,
> Melinda
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