Galicia

Galicia occupies the north-western corner of Spain, the rugged Atlantic-facing coast above Portugal that the Romans called Finis Terrae — the end of the earth. The tide here is one of the larger ranges on the Iberian Atlantic and the largest in Spain. Mean range at A Coruña is about 2.7 metres, semidiurnal, with two highs and two lows about twelve and a half hours apart. Spring tides push close to 4 metres at the equinoxes; neaps drop near 1.2. The classic Galician feature is the rías — long, deep coastal inlets carved by drowned river valleys that run inland for tens of kilometres. The Rías Baixas around Vigo and Pontevedra and the Rías Altas around A Coruña and Ferrol each behave like a tide-amplifier on the way in: high water at the head of the ría lags the open coast by 30 to 60 minutes and the height typically grows on the way upstream. Mussel-raft (bateas) operators, percebes harvesters working the cliff bases at Costa da Morte, and pulpo fishers all read the calendar for the lowest spring lows. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this site; Puertos del Estado is the authoritative Spanish tide source.