Galápagos Province

The Galápagos Islands lie 960 km west of the Ecuadorian mainland on the equator, at the meeting point of three major ocean currents. The cold Humboldt Current arrives from the south, the cold Cromwell Equatorial Undercurrent upwells on the eastern faces of the islands, and the warm Panama Current flows in from the north during the wet season (January–May). The result is one of the world's most biologically unusual inshore environments: penguins and marine iguanas sharing reef flats with tropical fish, sea lions hauling out alongside fur seals, cormorants that have lost the ability to fly because the upwelling is so productive they never needed to range far. The tidal regime is semidiurnal with moderate diurnal inequality. Spring range at Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island, is approximately 1.8–2.2 m above Chart Datum — small enough that most visitors notice the exposed rock platforms and tide pools more than the water-level change itself. At Academy Bay the tidal flat below the main dock area hosts marine iguana colonies that feed on algae exposed at low water; the flat typically uncovers from 0.2–0.3 m above Chart Datum and is best accessed within 90 minutes of predicted low. Tidal currents through the inter-island channels — Bolívar Channel between Fernandina and Isabela, the Itabaca Channel between Baltra and Santa Cruz — run 1.5–3.0 knots at springs. Dive sites on the current-exposed points of Wolf and Darwin Islands in the far north are world-famous for schooling hammerheads; conditions there are defined by current state more than tide height. INOCAR operates the Galápagos tide gauge network; the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz also monitors sea level as part of global climate research. Open-Meteo Marine powers the predictions on this site: accuracy ±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m.