Sainte-Suzanne tide times

Sainte-Suzanne is a commune on the northeast coast of Réunion, 15 km east of Saint-Denis, where the Sainte-Suzanne River meets the Indian Ocean at the foot of a coastal plain backed by sugarcane fields and vanilla plantations on the lower slopes of the island's windward escarpment. The northeast coast of Réunion is the wettest face of the island — the southeast trade winds rise over the interior highlands and deposit their moisture here before descending dry on the leeward west coast. The vegetation behind the beach reflects this: dense tropical growth right down to the shoreline in places, the cane fields green year-round.

The Cascade Niagara is the attraction that draws most visitors to Sainte-Suzanne: the Sainte-Suzanne River drops in a series of falls before reaching a lower pool and then the sea through a gorge bridged by the Pont Suspendu pedestrian suspension bridge. The falls are 20 to 25 m high; the pool below is swimmable when the river flow is moderate (it floods rapidly after heavy rain in the catchment). The Pont Suspendu gives access to both banks of the gorge and is the viewpoint for the lower falls.

The Sainte-Suzanne seafront — a rocky volcanic shoreline with a small beach area near the river mouth — is the working coastal edge of the commune. The fishermen's huts (cases des pêcheurs) on the shore are used by local anglers who fish the reef edge and the river mouth for carangue, bécune (barracuda), and the bichique, the fry of indigenous gobies that make their juvenile migration up river mouths in the season from June to October. The bichique fishery at river mouths is a traditional practice in Réunion, with specific seasonal windows and methods.

The northeast coast has more direct Indian Ocean swell exposure than the north coast around Saint-Denis, as the fetch window from the southeast broadens here. The tidal regime is Indian Ocean mixed semidiurnal: mean spring range 0.8 to 1.2 m. Low water on the volcanic rock platform at Sainte-Suzanne exposes the intertidal zone — urchins, cowrie shells, and octopus in the lava pools. The river mouth shifts slightly with tidal state and river discharge: at low water and low river flow the sand bar at the river entrance is exposed; at high water the mouth is deeper and bichique migration is more active.

Cyclone season (November to April) brings the most significant wave events to the northeast coast, which is more exposed than the west coast lagoon; the Cascade Niagara pool becomes inaccessible during high-river events following cyclone rainfall. Outside cyclone season, the northeast coast is reliably sunny in the morning before cloud builds over the highlands in the afternoon.

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 m on height — at Sainte-Suzanne's 0.8 to 1.2 m spring range, the height uncertainty is 20 to 30 percent of the total signal. SHOM publishes the authoritative harmonic tide tables for Réunion; the nearest reference station is Saint-Denis.