Fort-Liberté tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 00:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are America/Port-au-Prince local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Mon 18 May (range 0.8m). Next neap on Fri 22 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Fort-Liberté is a small town in northeastern Haiti on the Bay of Fort-Liberté — the most sheltered and protected natural anchorage on Haiti's north coast, a lagoon-like bay enclosed by mangrove-fringed shorelines and entered through a narrow channel from the Windward Passage. The bay is remarkable for its physical geography: roughly 5 kilometres wide and 6 kilometres deep, with depths of 6 to 15 metres in the main channel and extensive shallows in the inner sections where mangrove roots and sea grass grow. The tidal range at the bay entrance is approximately 0.3 to 0.4 metres — Caribbean microtidal — and the confined geometry of the bay means the tidal stream through the entrance channel is slightly amplified relative to the open coast. The historical Fort Dauphin was established by the French on the bay in 1731 as the main northern port east of Cap-Français. The fortifications — walls, bastions, and cannon emplacements — are partially standing at several points around the bay and represent some of the most intact colonial-era military architecture in Haiti east of Cap-Haïtien. The town was renamed Fort-Liberté after independence in 1804, the name change expressing the same declaration of sovereign transformation that renamed towns across the new republic. The bay's exceptional anchorage quality has made it historically important for navigation in the eastern Windward Passage region. The channel between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is narrow and the bay provides shelter from the northeast trades that blow steadily along the northern coast. The mangrove system in the inner bay is extensive — red, black, and white mangrove fringe the shallower sections, and the combined mangrove and sea grass habitat supports juvenile fish, shrimp, and the lobster that are fished commercially from the bay. Frigate birds are a constant presence above the bay, soaring on the trade wind thermals and harassing fishing birds. Brown pelicans work the bay surface throughout the day. The bay offers kayaking conditions that are among the most sheltered in Haiti — the enclosed water, the mangrove channels, and the relatively low wave energy make it accessible to paddlers who would find the open northern coast challenging. Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height — model-derived, not from a local gauge. The Hydrographie Nationale d'Haïti is the national maritime authority; the NOAA tide gauge at San Juan, Puerto Rico, provides regional reference data for the Windward Passage area.