The Circus Tide

The other day James took the dogs down to our beach, the tide table showed a 'negative low tide' marked in red, and being from Idaho we had no idea what a negative low tide was. There's high tide and low tide, right? And maybe the negative means it's extra low, or something.....

Our beach is kind of secluded by the cliffs wrapping around, and at high tide the tide comes right up against the cliffs and gets deep. There are about 100 stairs to get up and down to the beach. Sometimes when the tide is washing out there is about a two foot jump from the last step to the sand.

We usually only take the dogs at low tide so there is room for them to run around. One this particular day, when James got down to the beach he noticed that for being at low tide the water was coming pretty far up on the beach, but didn't really think too much of it. James and the dogs were really enjoying themselves running and playing fetch. Then after a minute or so the tide came in, almost to James' waist! Dog decoys, leashes, and flip flops were about to get washed away so James tries to hurry and grab all of that, meanwhile the dogs are about to be washed away too! Both dogs are crying and looking at James with great big panicky eyes trying to swim back to James. He runs out to Packer and basically throws him onto the staircase that leads back up the cliff, and goes back out to get Denver. Packer then freaks out because James and Denver are both in the water now, so Packer jumps back in! Since Denver is in hand he goes and puts Denver on the steps. And then Packer is trying to get up on that first step but with the water rushing around, practically making a whirlpool he can't do it. James jumps back in and pushes Packer on the bottom step. Both dogs are safe on the bottom step just crying and shaking. It was like a circus trying to save both dogs, decoys, leashes and flip flops! All of this happened in a matter of seconds, so fast but also kind of in slow motion. James decided that was enough fun at the beach for one day and put leashes and shoes on and walked back home!

James learned for both of us that the negative low tide, is really like and extra super high tide. We decided it is marked in red on the tide table for a reason! And now we just call it the circus tide!