Tides

The seas rise and fall twice a day. Many people barely consider it a curious, more or less annoying whim that widens or narrows the beach where they spend their vacations, although for sailors it’s another story. In 330 BC, the explorer Pytheas ventured through the Strait of Gibraltar, headed north in search of tin and amber, reached Thule, saw mountains of ice floating in the sea, the midnight sun, the aurora borealis, and was certain that the full and new moon produced the greatest tides. Many centuries later, it was Kepler who investigated, explained, and wrote about the magnetic attraction of the moon’s mass on the oceans, and Isaac Newton in his “Principia” baptized this magical attraction as “Gravity”. But Pytheas’ adventure and his connection of the moon’s phases with ocean tides still amaze us.

Later, others eagerly looked at the moon every day and for many years to win a juicy prize in pounds sterling. For the British Admiralty, it was essential not to get lost at sea, to know the “Longitude” precisely, and the mathematicians and wise men of the 18th century opted to know the exact distance from certain points on earth to the moon during each day and to elaborate complicated tables and calculations to determine the elusive Longitude. The Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, fifth royal astronomer, disputed with dirty tricks the coveted prize with the humble English watchmaker John Harrison, “a mechanical genius who paved the way for the science of the portable precision chronometer, devoted his life to this attempt. He achieved what Newton had feared was impossible: he invented a clock that would carry the true time of the port of departure, like an eternal flame, to any remote corner of the world.” That dispute, that discovery, that fierce struggle is recounted by Dava Sobel, a reporter and science communicator, in a historical novel entitled “Longitude” (2000). The precious clocks invented by Harrison can be admired at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In the end, the clock won over the moon.

Ten years ago, Diana Fabianova directed the documentary “The Moon Inside You” (2010). It is a personal and social journey to the deep roots of femininity materialized in a menstrual cycle that also synchronizes with lunar rhythms and has caused many taboos, myths, and prejudices throughout history. “The Moon Inside You” somehow rocks fertility because the lunar cycle and the average menstrual cycle have more or less the same duration. Even the term “menstruation” comes from the Greek and Latin words for month (mensis) and moon (mene).

We like tides, especially the highest or liveliest ones, those that completely hide a beach and then slowly reveal it to us. In the end, we are left with some verses from Antonio Machado that speak of tides, waits, and hopes: “Sabe esperar, aguarda que la marea fluya / -así en la costa un barco- sin que el partir te inquiete. / Todo el que aguarda sabe que la victoria es suya; / porque la vida es larga y el arte es un juguete. / Y si la vida es corta / y no llega la mar a tu galera, / aguarda sin partir y siempre espera, / que el arte es largo y, además, no importa”. (“Know how to wait, wait for the tide to flow / -like a boat on the coast- without being disturbed by your departure. / Everyone who waits knows that victory is theirs; / because life is long and art is a toy. / And if life is short / and the sea doesn’t reach your galley, / wait without leaving and always hope, / for art is long and, besides, it doesn’t matter”.)

Ramón J. Soria Breña

Season 2. Chapter 23	Mareas
Recording date	August 2020
Duration	2:19 minutes
Date of issue	November 13. 2020
Location	Marismas de Santoña, Victoria y Joyel. Cantabria. España
Image and sound	Ernesto Cardoso
Edition	Ernesto Cardoso
Opusculum	Ramón J. Soria Breña
Music	Andrés Chazarra
Song	Foalinha