By Jayson Byles, forager & chef · Updated August 2026
Every East Neuk Seaweed workshop date starts the same way: not with a diary, but with the moon. The shore’s larder opens on the tide, the tide answers to the moon, and once you can read that relationship you know — weeks in advance, anywhere on Earth — when the sea will hand you its lower shelves. This is the tide-craft we run our whole calendar on — and our free Tide Planner computes it for the weeks ahead.
Springs and neaps — the fortnightly heartbeat
Twice a month, at the new moon and the full moon, sun and moon pull the ocean in line and the tides swing big: higher highs, and the low, low waters foragers wait for. These are spring tides — from the idea of water ‘springing’, nothing to do with the season. Between them, at the quarter moons, come the neaps: mild, small tides that never quite uncover the good rock. The rhythm is beautifully reliable — a big spring series every two weeks, the very best ones often a day or two after the moon itself.
Reading a tide table like a forager
Two numbers matter: the time of low water and its height. Height is measured above chart datum — roughly the lowest the sea ever gets — so smaller is better: a 0.3 m low lays bare whole reefs that a 1.2 m low never touches. That is where dabberlocks and sea spaghetti live. Times shift by about fifty minutes a day, and every stretch of coast has its own table — always check locally rather than borrowing a neighbouring port’s times.
Working the falling tide
The forager’s rule is to follow the sea out: arrive an hour or two before low water, harvest on the drop, and let the turn walk you back up the shore. Never work with the sea behind you and never chase the last metre — the returning tide on a big spring moves faster than you think. Our A.L.L.W.E.T. framework makes Tides its final letter for a reason, and A Year on the Shore pairs this fortnightly clock with the seasonal one.