Feb 9, 2025
Moonstruck
Legend has it that when Alexander the Great’s soldiers reached the Indian Ocean and saw its waters rising and falling twice each day, they feared their invasion had displeased the gods.
I get it. The transformation of our beach every 12 hours is so radical - so profound - that it’s easy to see how it could be interpreted as divine retribution.
At high tide, Hilton Head’s South Forest Beach is a 12-mile-long strip of shoreline; at low tide (see photo), it’s acres and acres of sand,
As we learned in elementary school science class, it’s the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun - especially the moon - that makes the earth’s oceans bulge, causing a continuous change between high and low tide.