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[Gary Troxel]

I have been interested for years and finally registered.  In Sterling Hayden's book "The Wanderer" he mentions "no tide in Tahiti.  I've wondered since Gardner is not far off in coordinates, why do you theorize about a rising tide washing plane parts off the reef ?

[Jeff Lange]

Welcome Gary!
I don't know about the reasoning behind Mr. Haydens comment, but if you read anything on the site about the surf at Gardener/Niku you'll easily find out that there is indeed quite a tidal swing.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

... if you read anything on the site about the surf at Gardener/Niku you'll easily find out that there is indeed quite a tidal swing.

TIGHAR has done an extensive investigation and published tidal tables for the island. 

By measuring the tides at Niku during an expedition, they correlated what happens there with tidal observations at other reference islands.

By establishing this link, they can use old tide tables from the reference islands to figure out what was happening on Niku from July 2, 1937, until the last possible transmission was made from AE and FN.

[Patrick Dickson]

Maybe Mr. Haydens comment was on the small difference between high tide & low tide....Tide tables here
http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/locations/3639.html show differences between .6 feet-to-1.5 feet.

[Matt Revington]

The apparent lack of tide in Tahiti is due to it being at a tidal node or amphidromic point which occur where by chance currents and wave action combine to cancel out tidal changes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphidromic_point

[Gary Troxel]

Thank you all. Quite an education.