Spring Tides in Netherlands – The Ultimate Machine (II)

Just as predicted, only 5 hours later, the sea level dropped, and everything went back to normal. The harbor and surrounding land are visible once again.

Underneath the brown grass located in the center of the pictures, between the harbor and the birdhouse, is actually water, not land! It will take a few more days until the sea fully cleans the area.

11:30 AM:



5:00 PM



It’s almost unbelievable to witness such a dramatic change in landscape, in only a few hours. The sea claimed part of the land for half a day, and then returned it. Impressive force of nature!

Spring Tides in Netherlands – The Ultimate Machine

The exceptionally high and low tides, called spring tidesoccur at the time of the new moon or the full moon when the sun, moon, and earth are approximately aligned. 

Waking up in the morning and realizing all the birds from the reservation are gone = it’s happening. The birds leave when they have nothing else to sit on, as the land turns into water, and also when they feel the weather is going to get a turn for the worse. Two days of extremely powerful wind from the right direction, combined with the spring tide, did the trick. Because the conditions mentioned above must be just perfect in order to experience this phenomena, it happens quite rarely, about once every 20 years.

Reaching the dam, I was amazed by the view! The harbor is gone, the stairs which used to take you to lower ground are underwater, and the Kiekkaaste(bird observation house) is in the middle of the sea!


From what I understand, in just a few hours the water level will be back to normal, and the landscape will look the same as before. Absolutely mind blowing, especially when I was here a not very long ago, and it looked like this:

DSC_64077This was an absolutely fascinating experience. Thank you Mother Nature, for an amazing show!