9.14.2025 – have you turned from world ..

Beach 3 Minutes

have you turned from world ..
or have you too gone crazy
for power, for things?

Adapted from the poem The Sun by Mary Oliver and the lines where she writes,

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

As published in New and Selected Poems: Volume One (Boston, Beacon Press, 2004).

Every once in awhile, Mother Nature stirs herself and shows why see is boss and cleans house leaving paths of destruction and folks, with head in hands, muttering … what happened?

On the other hand, twice a day the beaches where I live are power washed by twice daily 6 to 8 foot tides coming in at speed of 5 to 8 knots.

When I first moved to the coast, I understood the rise and fall of the tide to be horizontal.

If it was an 8 foot tide coming in and my beach chair was at the waters edge, I would have to move my chair back 8 feet to accommodate the rising tide.

I was quick to learn the rise isn’t horizontal but vertical.

I am six feet tall.

If I stand at the waters edge at low tide and the tide comes and I don’t move, by high tide, the water will 2 feet deep OVER MY HEAD.

The weight and power of water can be calculated.

Key local info for Hilton Head

Assumptions for the calculation

To do the calculation, I’ll assume:

  1. A coastal area being considered: say a rectangular section of coast that is 1 kilometer (1000 m) along the shoreline, and extends 500 meters inland (or seaward) to where water depth changes with the tide.
  2. Average water depth change over that area due to tide rise = tidal range = 2.4 meters (≈ 8 feet). Let’s pick 2.5 m to be simple.
  3. Gravitational acceleration, g = 9.81 m/s².
  4. Volume of water moved = area × average height change.

Calculating potential energy (PE) of the tidal rise

  1. Area = 1000 m × 500 m = 500,000 m²
  2. Height (rise) = 2.5 m
  3. Volume of water moved = area × height =
    500,000 m² × 2.5 m = 1,250,000 m³
  4. Mass of water = volume × density =
    1,250,000 m³ × 1025 kg/m³ ≈ 1.28125×10⁹ kg
  5. Potential energy of raising that mass by the average height (here 2.5 m) = mass × g × height
    PE = 1.28125×10⁹ kg × 9.81 m/s² × 2.5 m ≈ 3.14×10¹⁰ Joules (≈ 3.14×10^10 J)

TNT equivalent

  • One ton of TNT is defined as about 4.184 × 10⁹ Joules.
  • So, energy here (3.14 × 10¹⁰ J) divided by 4.184 × 10⁹ J/ton = ~ 7.5 tons of TNT equivalent.

Twice a day, Mother Nature wipes the beaches clean on Hilton Head island, dropping the equivalent of almost 8 tons of TNT per kilometer of beach to do the job.

And the beach at Hilton Head is 20 Kilimoters long from the Hilton Headland to South Point at Sea Pines.

That means 160 tons of TNT that would take 32 B17 World War 2 bombers every 12 hours.

The tides come in and go out.

Little stands in the way.

Sure, mankind could drop the bombs and clear the beach but when that’s over the beach is destroyed and there is no clear plan to restore the beach.

Things do seems to get messed up when mankind gets involved in any way.

When Mother Nature finishes up, the beach is renewed, restored and we start all over again.

And its been happening since the world’s weather and such stabilized itself after the Noah episode.

As Lincoln said of the Gettysburg Address … “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here …”

Taken out of context to be sure but it captures what I am trying to express.

No permanence.

That tide is coming twice a day and nothing we can do to change, stop or impact it.

Yet we sit and watch the tide come in, with the sun and the blue sky and what we think is,

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

In many many many ways, in this day and age, I thank God for those feelings.

Published

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