Icacos Point 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 of Spain local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Mon 18 May (range 1.6m). 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.

Icacos Point is the southwestern tip of Trinidad, a low-lying peninsula that protrudes into the Boca de la Serpiente — the Serpent's Mouth passage between Trinidad and Venezuela. The Venezuelan coast at Güiria is visible from Icacos Point on clear days, approximately 25 kilometres to the southwest across a passage that Christopher Columbus named in August 1498 when he was alarmed by the current-driven sea state he encountered on his third voyage. The Boca de la Serpiente's tidal stream, driven by the exchange between the Gulf of Paria to the north and the Atlantic to the south, reaches 3 to 4 knots at spring tides — a significant current in a narrow passage where wind-against-tide conditions produce standing waves and confused sea conditions. The Gulf of Paria itself has a distinct tidal regime from the Caribbean coast — the enclosed gulf amplifies tidal range slightly, and the exchange through the Bocas passages (Boca del Dragón in the northwest and Boca de la Serpiente in the southwest) provides the primary water renewal for the Gulf. Icacos village is a fishing community at the end of a dead-end road from Siparia, approximately 60 kilometres south of Port of Spain. The road ends at the beach; the point is accessible by foot along the beach south of the village. The community has a small jetty and a fish market that operates when the boats come in. Pirogue fishing is the principal livelihood — the boats cross the Boca de la Serpiente into Venezuelan waters (legal under longstanding informal fisheries arrangements) and return with snapper, grouper, and king fish. The beach at Icacos is Gulf of Paria-facing — it faces northwest into the enclosed gulf and is sheltered from the Atlantic swell. The beach is grey-brown sand with turbid water influenced by the Orinoco sediment plume that enters the Gulf of Paria from the southeast and reduces water clarity throughout the gulf. This is not a swimming beach in the visual sense of clear Caribbean water; it is a working waterfront with a distinct geography. The closest thing to a tourist draw at Icacos is the experience of standing at the extreme southwestern point of Trinidad and looking south across the Boca de la Serpiente to the Venezuelan coast — a political, geographic, and maritime boundary that is as visually evident as Columbus found it alarming. 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 Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard and the Hydrographic Survey Office maintain the navigational data for the Boca de la Serpiente passage.