Fremantle, Western Australia tide times

Fremantle sits at the mouth of the Swan River where it meets the Indian Ocean, the working port for Perth twenty kilometres upstream and the historical immigrant landing for Western Australia since the colony was founded in 1829. The Inner Harbour wraps the Swan River mouth between North Mole and South Mole, with Fishing Boat Harbour just to the south and Bathers Beach immediately west of the heritage town centre. 2.

The pattern is mixed semidiurnal but heavily diurnal-leaning at most lunar phases — many days produce a single clear high and a single clear low rather than two of each. The astronomical signal is small because the south-west Australian coast sits far from the major tidal nodes of the Indian Ocean and the local shelf and seabed geometry reflect rather than amplify the propagating wave. What matters more on a day-to-day basis is meteorological tide.

The Fremantle Doctor — the steady south-west sea breeze that builds through the afternoon from November through April — pushes water against the coast and lifts apparent water level at the harbour by 20 to 40 centimetres on sustained event days, with the strongest events around midsummer reaching 50 centimetres or more. Tropical-low rainfall events from the north can drive the Swan River discharge through the harbour and force surface levels well above any astronomical reading. The defining seasonal events are the Rottnest Channel Swim and the Cottesloe surf.

7 kilometres of open Indian Ocean to Rottnest Island has run every February since 1991 and draws thousands of solo and team swimmers — the day's tide window matters less than the wind and the swell. Cottesloe Beach immediately north of Fremantle hosts the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition every March and runs the local surf scene at Cottesloe Reef, North Cottesloe, and Mosman Park. The 1987 America's Cup defended at Fremantle on the Indian Ocean course off Rottnest is the only America's Cup ever sailed in southern hemisphere waters and the moment that turned the Western Australian sailing industry into a global force.

Fishing Boat Harbour fish-and-chip culture, the Maritime Museum at Victoria Quay, the Fremantle Markets in the heritage town centre, the Cappuccino Strip espresso scene, and the working container terminal at North Quay all read different parts of the calendar. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the Department of Transport WA publish the authoritative tide tables; Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page.