Weihai, Shandong tide times

Weihai (威海) occupies the eastern tip of the Shandong Peninsula, where the Yellow Sea opens wide and the Korean Peninsula lies 300 km east across open water — visible on exceptional clear days as a faint blue line above the horizon. The city's waterfront curves in a gentle arc facing east, catching the first light of any sunrise on the Chinese mainland at this latitude.

The Yellow Sea produces a well-behaved semidiurnal tide here: two highs and two lows every 24 hours and 50 minutes, with a mean spring range of 1.5–2.5 m. That range is moderate compared to the funnel bays to the south — Hangzhou Bay, the Yangtze mouth — but it is regular and readable, which matters when planning time on the water. Low water typically exposes a band of rocky and sandy foreshore along Weihai Bay that's 50–150 m wide depending on the point in the spring-neap cycle.

Liugong Island (刘公岛) sits 7 km offshore, a 30-minute ferry ride from the Weihai waterfront terminal. The island is best known for what happened here in February 1895 — the Battle of Weihaiwei, the decisive engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War. The Beiyang Fleet, China's first modern naval force and the product of 20 years of naval modernisation, was blockaded in this harbour and destroyed over a siege lasting several weeks. Admiral Ding Ruchang went down with the fleet rather than surrender. The defeat effectively ended China's first attempt to build a modern navy and accelerated the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The island is now a National Forest Park; the Beiyang Fleet museum contains the original torpedo boats and naval artillery from the 1895 engagements, and the fortifications on the island's southern shore are intact. The ferry crossing takes 30 minutes and runs regular departures throughout the day. The tidal current between the island and the mainland is mild enough that the ferry schedule is not tide-dependent, though the crossing is choppier in the afternoon when northeast winds pick up.

Aquaculture visible from the waterfront and from the ferry crossing tells the other story of Weihai Bay. Sea cucumber (刺参, Stichopus japonicus) and kelp are farmed in float-cage and long-line systems across the inner bay. The float-cage arrays shift slowly with the tidal current — you can watch the direction of current flow from a fixed position on the promenade by tracking the alignment of the floats. Sea cucumber is a high-value product in the regional market; Weihai's cold, clean Yellow Sea water is considered premium habitat, and the Weihai-origin label commands a price premium over product from further south. Harvest windows are controlled by water temperature, not tide, but the tidal current keeps the cage systems aerated and prevents stagnation.

Eighty-five kilometres east, the Chengshantou Scenic Area (成山头) is the easternmost cape of the Shandong Peninsula, sometimes called China's Cape Horn — a cliff headland where the Yellow Sea coast ends and the Bohai Strait begins. Tidal currents converge around the point from both sides and reach 2–3 knots on spring tides. On a spring ebb the surface is visibly textured with rip lines and eddies where the two tidal streams collide. The cape road is a scenic drive from Weihai city — allow 90 minutes each way. The current rip around Chengshantou is navigable by experienced coastal kayakers who time the crossing to the slack, but it's not a place to drift into on a neap-tide paddle without checking the tide tables.

The city beach faces east and gets direct morning light from around 05:00 in summer — early enough that the beach is empty and the water surface is still. Photographers working the foreshore at low water in that light find exposed rocks with mussel and barnacle growth that add foreground texture to the sea horizon. The beach crowd arrives later; the working hours for photography are the first two hours of daylight.

Anglers work the harbour breakwater and the rocky shore south of the ferry terminal. Flounder, rockfish, and hairtail are the primary target species. Low water on spring tides exposes more of the rocky structure along the southern bay, giving access to ground that's unreachable at high water.

Tide data for Weihai, Shandong 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.