tomboy

Looking at a tide table for Cherbourg, high tide on the day we're visiting MSM (I assume they both have high tide at the same time) is at 1:32 and 14:04. I assume low tide is at about 7:45 and 17:20.

So, how much time should one allow for walking from the parking lot to the Mont before the tide sweeps you away, and likewise on the way out? I'm from the Midwest USA, so tide for me is a laundry detergent.

Patrick

In that case, tomboy, I think the Tide will Wisk you away, if you get my Drift.

Actually although I can't answer you, I will tell you this. Just because there is a high tide it doesn't mean that it will really be very high. In fact the biggest disappointment of the place is that while we were on the Mount (overnight plus a full day), although you could see some variation in the tide, the water never came up much at all. In fact the whole mount remained sitting in a vast mud flat -- sans water!

Underhill

The causeway is meant to keep people well above the high-tide line; whether it does so or not would be an interesting topic for discussion.

Aaron Elkins's wonderful "Old Bones" makes excellent background reading.

Michael

A warning will be posted if the parking lot next to the causeway will be flooded by a high tide.

janeg

Patrick. I think that was Dreft.

PalQ

Due to silting of the bay, the Mont rarely morphs into an island at high tides today, staying perpetually high and dry and a part of the mainland. If it happens, apparently only a few times a year, it supposedly is at the full moon when tides are highest. Actually a debate is raging in the area - government plans to dredge the bay and restore stream flow into it that can cleanse it have aroused local dander. Farmers, who irrigate and take much of the former normal flow of the bay's tributaries, are reluctant to give up their water. And the plan also involves removal of the about one-mile causeway to further encourage the natural cleansing of the bay to abate silting, replacing it with a bridge, and, controversially removing today's parking lots at the Mont's entrance, relocating them on the mainland and having a people-mover or bus ferry them to the Mont, has been met with opposition from the Mont's shopkeepers, who, as shopkeepers everywhere, are myopic about having parking as close to their stores/hotels as possible. Anyway, no you won't have to worry about being stranded on the mount. If the rare flooding does occur, signs will be posted. Some of the parking lots may periodically flood, so heed the signs there about high tides.