Seaweed foraging is planned by the moon: the big ‘spring’ tides around each new and full moon uncover shore that neap tides never touch. This planner shows official UKHO tide predictions — real low-water times and heights for the Fife coast — for the week ahead, maps the lunar cycle for six weeks out, and shows which seaweeds each tide puts within reach. New to tides? Start with the glossary below or the full story in How to Read the Tides.
The best days are the same along the whole coast — but exact times differ slightly between the Forth and Tay ends of it, and the shore underfoot changes village to village.
The next six weeks
Key — colours, moons & markers
Find your day
e.g. “a big spring with low water between 9am and 2pm, in the next three months”.
None of the found days fit these filters — untick some, or search a longer period.
What to bring for a shore session
- Feet & body: wellies or grippy boots, warm layers and a windproof shell — coastal weather turns fast, whatever the forecast said.
- Harvest kit: scissors (always cut, never pull), a breathable basket or mesh bag — never a sealed plastic bag — and a small tub for delicate finds like pepper dulse.
- Safety kit: the day’s tide table, a charged phone, water and a snack, and an ally who knows where you are — the full A.L.L.W.E.T. checklist takes two minutes to read and covers the rest.
What each tide uncovers
- Neap lows (small): upper & mid shore only — channelled and spiral wrack, gutweed, the upper patches of pepper dulse.
- Moderate lows: the full mid shore — bladderwrack and serrated wrack country, pepper dulse at its best.
- Spring lows: the lower shore opens — dulse, sea lettuce, carrageen.
- Big spring lows: the sea’s bottom shelf — dabberlocks, sea spaghetti, sugar kelp and oarweed. These are the days our workshops run.
Plan, then go: pick a big-spring day, arrive an hour or two before low water on the falling tide, and let the shore open in front of you. Or skip the homework: workshop dates already sit on the best lows.
Tide words, plainly
- Spring tide
- The fortnight’s biggest tides — higher highs and lower lows — arriving with each new and full moon, when the Sun and Moon pull the sea along the same line. Nothing to do with the season: “spring” as in the water springing up.
- Neap tide
- The smallest tides, around each quarter moon, when Sun and Moon pull at right angles and partly cancel. On neaps only the upper shore uncovers.
- The age of the tide
- Springs don’t peak on the day of the full or new moon but a day or two after — the ocean takes time to respond. On this coast the lag is about a day and a half, and the planner builds it in.
- New / full / quarter / crescent / gibbous
- Names for how much of the Moon is lit. Crescent = less than half; gibbous = more than half; waxing = growing toward full; waning = shrinking toward new. For tides only two matter: new and full mean springs are a day or two away, quarters mean neaps. Tap the i beside any phase in the planner for what it means on the shore.
- Low water (LW) / high water (HW)
- The moments the tide bottoms out and tops out — roughly twice a day each, about 12 hours 25 minutes between one low and the next, which is why tide times drift ~50 minutes later every day.
- Height
- Predicted water level in metres above chart datum (roughly the lowest tide ever expected). Lower low-water number = more shore uncovered. Below ~0.7 m on this coast, the kelp line comes into reach.
- Why our two shores differ
- The tide reaches this coast as a travelling wave, and the shape of the Forth and the Tay each bend its timing a little. Our two official stations — Anstruther Easter (south) and River Tay Bar (north) — usually agree within a few minutes, but can drift up to about twenty minutes apart either way as the tide’s size changes. The planner shows both, and every village note says which column to read.
The full story — why the sea does any of this — is in How to Read the Tides.