Pinamar, Buenos Aires Province tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 19:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are America/Argentina/Buenos Aires local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Tue 05 May (range 1.0m). Next neap on Fri 08 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Pinamar is a beach resort town 340 kilometres south of Buenos Aires on the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province, notable for something no other Argentine beach town has: it was designed in full before it existed. In the 1940s, architect Jorge Bunge laid out a master plan with curving streets through a coastal pine forest that had been planted in the late 19th century specifically to stabilise the dune system. The result is a town where Parque Pinamar — 6 kilometres of maritime pine forest extending up to 1 kilometre inland — forms the green structure of the entire settlement, with houses and streets fitted into the trees rather than the trees planted around the streets. The Atlantic tidal regime here is semidiurnal with a mean spring range of 0.8 to 1.5 metres, relatively modest for an Atlantic coast. The shallow continental shelf geometry of the Buenos Aires Province coastline dampens tidal amplitude significantly compared to Patagonian or estuary-influenced locations. A typical spring tide moves from about 0.2 m at low to 1.3 m at high. The practical consequence for beach activities is a width difference of 20 to 40 metres between low and high spring water — enough to matter for set-up, but nothing like the dramatic beach exposure seen at northeast Brazil or Patagonian sites. At low water the beach is at its widest and the intertidal slope is at its shallowest, producing a long shallow-water run that makes safe entry for children and paddlers straightforward. Surf at Pinamar is Atlantic, arriving from the south and southwest — swells generated by extratropical low-pressure systems tracking northeast from the Patagonian and South Atlantic systems. Summer (December through February) is the lightest swell period; autumn and winter (April through August) see the most consistent south and southwest swells, with wave heights of 1 to 2 metres on the better days. The beach breaks at Pinamar work at mid to low tide; high water pushes the break close to the top of the beach and reduces rideable wave face. Anglers fish the beach for corvina negra (Pogonias cromis, the black drum) and brótola (a bottom-dwelling cod relative) using long-distance beach casting rigs. Corvina are the primary target — they run close inshore on the incoming tide, particularly in autumn (March through June) when water temperatures drop to the 12 to 16°C range that corvina prefer. The technique is a long-distance cast (60 to 100 metres) with a bottom rig, letting the bait settle in the surf zone and waiting for the run. The last two hours of the flood and the first hour of the ebb produce the most consistent take. Cariló, 10 kilometres north of Pinamar, is within the same pine forest system — another master-planned beach enclave, smaller and more expensive than Pinamar, with a reputation as the preferred destination for Buenos Aires affluent families (porteños). Cariló has no public beach access in the Argentine sense — the beach is technically public, but the access routes through the private properties make it effectively restricted. Mar de las Pampas, the village between Pinamar and Cariló, is smaller still and quieter in both atmosphere and vehicle traffic. The Médano Blanco dune system sits south of Pinamar town, outside the pine forest, and includes the largest móvil (actively migrating) dune in Buenos Aires Province. The dune migrates northward under the dominant south wind at a rate of a few metres per year, and its advance has been monitored for decades. Walking the dune system is the main inland activity south of town. The dune face to the sea at Médano Blanco is accessible at low water when the beach below it is widest. Jorge Bunge's street plan is still visible in Pinamar's layout — the curved roads, the setbacks into the trees, the lack of a grid. It is one of the few Argentine beach towns that reads as designed rather than accumulated. The architecture within the plan is variable, ranging from original mid-century houses to more recent builds, but the pine forest structure Bunge used as the organising principle remains intact and is protected by municipal regulation. Tide data for Pinamar, Buenos Aires Province comes from the Open-Meteo Marine API, a gridded model product. Timing accuracy is ±45 minutes, height accuracy ±0.3 m — usable for trip planning, not for navigation.