Guanacaste

Guanacaste fronts the northern Pacific coast of Costa Rica from the Nicaraguan border at the Río Sapoá south to the Río Aranjuez at the entrance to the Gulf of Nicoya. The coastline is one of the longest and most varied in Central America: open Pacific beaches, the Papagayo Gulf at the north, the Santa Elena Peninsula and the Santa Rosa wilderness coast, and the long ribbon of beach towns from Tamarindo down to Sámara and Nosara on the Nicoya Peninsula. The tide signature here is mixed semidiurnal with a large range typical of the eastern tropical Pacific. Mean range runs around 2.0 to 2.5 metres, with spring tides around new and full moons pushing past 2.8 to 3.0 metres and neap tides compressing toward 1.2. The pattern is two highs and two lows of unequal size each day, with the bigger swing usually falling on the lower-low water. The wide tide range exposes broad sand flats at low water on the gentle Pacific beaches and reshapes the working day for everyone on the coast. The Tamarindo estuary and the Río Matapalo mouth, the Las Baulas leatherback nesting beach at Playa Grande, the calmer crescent at Playa Conchal with its crushed-shell sand, and the working surf town of Playa Negra all swing through the full range. Surfers at Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point on the Santa Rosa coast time their dawn-patrol sessions to the tide; fishers running pangas out of Playa del Coco and Playas del Coco target the dorado and roosterfish on the change. Sea-turtle research operations on Las Baulas read the night tides for the leatherback nesting season. The Costa Rican Instituto Geográfico Nacional and Puerto Caldera port operations are the regional authoritative references; Universidad de Costa Rica's CIMAR (Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología) operates regional gauges. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this site.