Flyingtroll.com

Posted on May 29, 2009 - by J Lane

Canadian ocean currents

Side projects

I started working on an Excel sheet at work today (work in this case being Blue Vista) that automatically calculated current times for Mayne Island. It’s essential information for sea kayaking.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why this information isn’t available online. I’ve searched high and low for it, but can’t find so much as a PDF. Tide tables are available, but not currents.

I’d love to write an app to automatically pull the data, do the time conversions, and possibly even put it on a map. I’m even considering scanning and OCRing the printed book….

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Side projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments

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  1. Visit My Website

    June 1, 2009

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    Manny said:


    I might have some helpful information.

    The WWW Tide and Current Predictor (which uses the same data as xtide and JTides) has Active Pass and Boat Pass currents, but oddly enough it doesn’t have Georgeson Pass (although it’s easy to calculate because its offset is the same as Boat Pass and has approx. half the speed). Not sure why it doesn’t have Swanson Channel, Trincomali Channel, or Boundary Pass, but it looks like xtide provides a tool that allows secondary stations to be added, which might be easier than writing your own app.

    DFO provides Tide and current table PDFs for reference stations.

    BCKayaker.com has a scan of the secondary current stations.



  2. Visit My Website

    June 1, 2009

    Permalink

    J Lane said:


    Manny, you are my new hero.

    I’m fickle though (just a warning) so it might not last that long ;-)