[Read the tide · beta]
TideEx
My tide explorer, and now the field tool for everything that used to be scattered across this section: tidepool and snorkel spots, low-tide timing, and what's happening along the coast. It answers when. This page's neighbor — Harvest Rules — answers whether you're allowed.
What it does
Exposure windows, not raw tide
Not 'low tide is at 10:08.' How long your shelf is actually out, above the height that matters for that beach, in daylight — plus weeks of tides, weather, and sun times in the same planner.
Your beach, not the nearest harbor
162 mapped spots read against the 402 NOAA gauges that actually govern them, tuned with local offsets. Drop your own pin on a cove that isn't on the map yet.
Activity modes + access tags
Low-tide exploring, harvest, snorkel, surf — each keyed to its own water height. Every pin carries its tideland tag: public, state park, county, private, tribal, permit, unverified.
Field notes + observations
Photograph the waterline against a known reference and it becomes a ground-truth data point. Citizen science that's just you, writing down what the water did.
Coast Guide built in
Harvest law, licenses, limits, and tidepool etiquette for Washington, Oregon, and California — plain sentence up top, citation underneath. The Wrack Line species library is next.
Installable, one-hand, offline-friendly
Map-first, opens at your location, bottom nav sized for one wet hand. Add it to your phone like an app. Free, ad-free, nothing sold on.
[Keep it afloat]
TideEx is free. It isn't free to run.
No ads, no paywall, no data sold on. If it saved you a wasted drive, chip in — nothing unlocks, and the money keeps the maps live and a walk seat open for someone who can't pay.