Tide Times Near Me App
Safety
Tide Times Near Me App
As much as I’m a lover of arid land hiking, I also love coastal hiking and regularly find myself walking along beaches with a full pack. An extra consideration that comes with coastal walking is from time to time you may need to cross inlets. Many of these inlets are impacted by tidal movements from high tide to low tide and back. From day to day the depth of these inlets can also vary by up to a metre or more and that means the difference between crossing when the water level is below knee depth or waist depth and above. In addition to the water depth, the speed of water movement can vary.
The ideal time to cross is at low tide or as close as possible when the water level and movement is low and slowest. To do this you need a tide chart of some sort. Back in the old days you could go to a fishing or outdoor store and pick up a paper tide chart. These days you can go online and print out the details for the dates you, or better still download the Tide Times Near Me app.
I have been using the Tide Times Near Me app for a number of years for all my coastal walking needs and find that it just ticks all the boxes particularly the easy to use one. This is an Australian app that also includes Antarctica, and nearby Pacific Islands and Indian Ocean Territories.
You start by choosing your relevant area by state/region and then choose the closest coastal town. This will provide you with the most accurate possible tide variation. In addition, this app also shows the moon’s phases which impacts tide depths.
This app is free of charge and is very easy to use. If you’re in an area with no phone signal then you need to check the tides and take screen shot while you still have signal or take a print it.
The app can be downloaded from:
iTunes: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/tide-times-near-me-australia/id1122688228
Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.vervetech.tidetimesau&hl=en-US
Tide Times Near Me app image showing a screenshot. In this image low tide shows at 9:17 pm in the evening at 0.61 cm versus high tide at 4:00 am at 1.24 cm – essentially a difference of 63 cm between and equates to the water being at my knee level up to waist deep. I use this app when planning my coastal hikes where an inlet crossing is required
The first inlet crossing on my 2018 Bibbulmun Track hike, Torbay Inlet. I had originally planned to cross this inlet on day 2 of my walk but as I had reached my day 1 campground earlier than I had planned, I realised that crossing on this day meant the water level was 40 cm shallower (based on the Tide Times Near Me app).
The crossing only took about three minutes but I took about 30 minutes to identify the best crossing point.
There is more than one app with this name but look for this logo!
Last updated
25 February 2025