Learning something new today.............................

Us midwesterners have limited experience with tides, although I've known forever that the gravitational pull of the moon as it orbits the earth causes the high and low tides.  The high tide at Hilton Head this morning seemed excessively high.  Commenting about it to the nice beach patrol person, she responded that it was because of the full moon.  Oh.  Then the thought:  Wait a minute, the moon doesn't change.  It is always the same size.  It is only the play of the sun on it that makes if crescent or full.  My Sweetie said, "Well, you can google it when we get back to the condo."  Wise woman.  Turns out that the Sun also affects tides, just to a lesser degree because of its distance.  When the Sun and Moon are aligned in a certain way, such as during the full Moon, their gravitational pulls are in tandem, thus increasing their impact on the tides.  In case you want more about tides:

Because the tides are influenced by both the Moon and the Sun, it's easy to see that when the Sun lines up with the Moon and the Earth, as during a New Moon or Full Moon (a configuration also called "syzygy"), the tidal effect is increased. These are known as spring tides, named not for the season, but for the fact that the water "springs" higher than normal.

On the other hand, if the Sun and the Moon are 90 degrees apart in relation to an observer on Earth as during the First Quarter Moon or Third Quarter Moon (sometimes called half moons), then high tides are not as high as they normally would be. This is because despite its greater distance, the Sun's mass allows it to exert enough gravitational force on the oceans that it can negate some of the effects of the Moon's pull. This phenomenon of lower high tides is called aneap tide.

The height of the tides can also vary during the course of a month because the Moon is not always the same distance from the Earth. As the Moon's orbit brings it in closer proximity to our planet (closest distance within a moon cycle is called perigee), its gravitational forces can increase by almost 50%, and this stronger force leads to high tides. Likewise, when the Moon is farther away from the Earth (furthest distance is called apogee), the tides are not as spectacular.