Tides of the Caribbean EarthCache
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Located on the sandy beach of Punta Cana
A tide is a repeated cycle of sea level changes in the following stages:
• Over several hours the water rises or advances up a beach in the flood
• The water reaches its highest level, called high water.
• The sea level lowers or falls over several hours during the ebb tide.
• The level stops falling at low water.
Tides are the rising of Earth's ocean surface caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun acting on the oceans
Tides can be thought of as waves that travel around an oceanic basin. If you draw lines of constant phase (or time at which high tide occurs), they meet at a hub where there is no tide (it’s high- tide all the time, so the water level never changes). This hub is called an amphidromic point. If the basin were perfectly regular, the amphidromic point would be in the centre. The Atlantic is quite irregular. As it turns out, one of these amphidromic points is right on the edge of the Caribbean.
The structure and history of the Caribbean are also not well known, but both the Gulf and the Caribbean are of great geological interest.
Why Rip Currents Form
As waves travel from deep to shallow water, they will break near the shoreline. When waves break strongly in some locations and weakly in others, this can cause circulation cells which are seen as rip currents: narrow, fast-moving belts of water traveling offshore.
Where Rip Currents Form
Rip currents most typically form at low spots or breaks in sandbars, and also near structures such as groins, jetties and piers. Rip currents can be very narrow or extend in widths to hundreds of yards. The seaward pull of rip currents varies: sometimes the rip current ends just beyond the line of breaking waves, but sometimes rip currents continue to push hundreds of yards offshore
SAFETY
Riptides safety in Punta Cana – A riptide is a narrow channel of current moving away from the beach because of the reef which disturbs the incoming waves. There are not a lot of riptides on Punta Cana beaches. However, if you do ever get caught in one they are as easy to get out of as they are terrifying.. The natural instinct when stuck in one is to swim frantically toward the beach, but the riptide pulls you out faster than you can swim in. Riptides are usually no more than 50 meters wide; the best thing to do is to swim sideways until you feel the current stop affecting you
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