Bali

Bali sits in the central Indonesian archipelago between Java to the west across the narrow Bali Strait and Lombok to the east across the deeper Lombok Strait, with the Indian Ocean opening south past the Bukit Peninsula and the Bali Sea sheltering the calmer northern coast. The tide here is a small mixed semidiurnal signal modulated by the surrounding shallow seas. Mean range at the Sanur and Benoa harbour gauges on the south-east coast is about 1.4 metres, with the asymmetry between the two daily highs and the two daily lows shifting through the lunar month and pushing close to a strongly diurnal pattern at certain phases. Spring tides reach close to 2.4 metres and neaps drop near 0.6. The defining seasonal force is the monsoon cycle — the south-west wet monsoon from November through March drives onshore swell against the south coast at Kuta, Uluwatu, and Padang Padang, and the south-east dry monsoon from April through October cleans up the same coastline for the legendary surf season. The reef breaks along the Bukit fire on the lower half of the tide cycle when the inside reef is closest to the surface, and Sanur on the calmer east-facing coast reads the same table for the opposite reason: family-friendly snorkelling and SUP windows fall on the higher half of the cycle when the inside lagoon clears the reef shelf. The mangrove channels behind Benoa, the temple ceremony rituals at Tanah Lot timed to low water for pilgrim access, and the Nusa Lembongan crossing through Badung Strait all read the table for different windows. BMKG and the Indonesian Hydrographic and Oceanographic Centre (Pushidrosal) publish the authoritative tide tables; Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this site.