Speyside 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 1.1m). 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.

Speyside is a small fishing village on the Atlantic-facing northeastern coast of Tobago, at the end of the coastal road from Scarborough — a 40-kilometre drive that crosses the island's forested spine at the Roxborough-Bloody Bay road and descends to the Atlantic shore through forest that is part of the Main Ridge Forest Reserve, designated in 1776 as the first protected rainforest in the Western Hemisphere. The village is compact: a few streets of brightly painted houses on the hillside above the bay, a handful of guesthouses, two dive operators, and a concrete jetty from which the boat transfers to Little Tobago Island depart. The bay faces northeast into the Columbus Channel and the Atlantic; swell arrives from this direction year-round, driven by the northeast trade winds, and the tidal current through the Little Tobago Channel runs with more energy than the Caribbean-side waters. Spring tidal range in the Speyside area is approximately 0.4 to 0.6 metres — the Atlantic exposure does not significantly amplify the tidal signal in this part of the Caribbean. The dive sites at Speyside are ranked among the top in the entire eastern Caribbean by multiple independent surveys. The manta ray cleaning station in the Little Tobago Channel is the primary draw: Atlantic manta rays (Mobula birostris) visit cleaning stations on the reef where smaller fish remove parasites and dead tissue from the mantas' gill slits and skin. The cleaning stations off Speyside are active year-round, with the highest manta density from December through May when the trade wind upwelling is strongest and plankton concentrations are highest. Mantas at Speyside have been documented with wingspan measurements of 4 to 5 metres. The reef structure in the Speyside area includes brain coral heads of extraordinary age and size — individual colonies that are several centuries old, their surfaces furrowed by decades of growth into forms that occupy sections of reef floor 2 to 3 metres across. The current in the Little Tobago Channel enables a drift dive from the north end of the channel, covering 800 metres of reef in a single dive without effort. Most Speyside dives are conducted as 2-tank boat dives from the jetty; dive certification to Open Water level is required. The manta dive sites are typically intermediate — appropriate for certified divers comfortable with 15 to 25 metre depth and moderate current. Little Tobago Island itself (also called Bird of Paradise Island historically) is a seabird colony reserve: red-billed tropicbirds, frigatebirds, boobies, and the brown booby in numbers. The forest on the island was historically used to introduce birds of paradise from New Guinea for commercial feather trade (a practice ended by law in the 20th century); no birds of paradise remain but the name persists in the literature. 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 Institute of Marine Affairs and the Trinidad and Tobago Hydrographic Survey Office are the domestic reference authorities.