Time for a corny joke:
Q: Why do sailors measure a ship's speed in knots?
A: Because they have to keep the ocean tide (tied)!
I come from southeastern New Brunswick, near the Bay of Fundy coast, with the world's highest tides. (It has something to do with being near the 45th parallel halfway between the North Pole and the Equator...) Nearby Hopewell Cape has the Rocks, "the world's largest potted plant," with trees growing on isolated rocks due to the strong tidal erosion. In recent years they've finally started to develop the tides' electrical potential.
One of my childhood memories is of passing the tidal flats in March after the full-moon spring tide, when big chunks of dirty ice would wash ashore. It's odd what we remember.
Tides result from the gravitational pull of the moon, and are biggest at the full moon, because the sun and the moon are on opposite sides of the earth, both pulling in their direction. These tides have played an important role in evolution, because life started in the sea, and tides stranded sea life on the land, where some of it evolved into land life.
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