We walked in lovely sunshine at Silloth today. The tide was coming in. I noticed a mismatch between the surface waves and the tidal current. The waves are coming top left to bottom right in the photograph. The tidal current moves left to right. I wonder if the waves are always in this direction? I will remember to look. The wind was blowing left to right so the waves were not lined up with the wind. In the photograph, the tidal current hit the groyne. It flowed over it in the same way that a river flows over a step in a weir. I think the water must have gone faster at this point because the wave seemed to stretch sideways - see the wedge of clearer water in the middle. Then there was an area of turbulence. Could this be a version of the aerofoil effect? And notice that because it is a wedge, my proposed speed change must be more pronounced further out.
