Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island sits in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence — Canada's smallest province, an island of red sandstone and red sandy beaches, surrounded by the warmest seawater north of Virginia. Surface temperatures reach 20°C in August, a product of the shallow enclosed Gulf heating through the summer. Tidal regime is semidiurnal and mesotidal, but the ranges vary sharply by location and embayment geometry. Charlottetown on the Hillsborough River estuary runs roughly 1.2 metres mean range; Summerside on Bedeque Bay, where bay geometry amplifies the tidal signal, reaches approximately 1.8 metres; Cavendish on the open north shore, facing the Gulf directly, is lower at around 0.7 metres. The red colour of the island's cliffs, beaches, and soil comes from the high iron oxide content of the Permian sandstone that underlies the province. The cliffs erode continuously — PEI loses approximately 30 centimetres of coastline per year on exposed sections — and the red sand at tide line is the direct product of that erosion. At low water the full width of the red-sand beaches is accessible; at high water the sea presses the cliff bases on steeper sections. Aquaculture runs on the tidal cycle. PEI mussels and oysters — farmed in the sheltered bays and estuaries around the island — depend on tidal flushing to renew the nutrient-laden water the bivalves filter. Malpeque oysters, grown in the tidal estuaries of the northwest coast, are among the most recognized oyster brands in North America. Green Gables Heritage Place at Cavendish preserves the setting that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908) — the most visited literary site in Canada. Tide predictions on this site come from Open-Meteo Marine (±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m accuracy). For authoritative official Canadian predictions, consult DFO — Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Canadian Tidal Prediction Service (tides.gc.ca).