This book would not have been possible without the generous help of many people. We are extremely grateful to Latha Menon of the Oxford University Press for championing the idea in the beginning and to Ernest Naylor for his guidance. Further information and advice was provided by Anne-Christin Schulz of the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Christopher Jones and Joanne Crewdson of the UK Hydrographic Office. Jenny Nugée, publication editor for VSIs, patiently guided us through the business of producing this book. Eric Jones, who has seen most of the tidal bores on our planet, offered his insights on Chapter 5. Phil Woodworth read a draft version of the book and made invaluable suggestions for improvement. The book is much improved as a result of acting on those. Bangor University, Universitetet i Bergen, and the European Union are thanked for their support.
Data for some of the illustrations were taken from the NOAA tides and currents website. Satellite data used in Chapter 7 were received and processed by the UK’s NERC Earth Observation Data Acquisition and Analysis Service (NEODAAS) at Dundee University and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (http://www.neodaas.ac.uk). SeaWiFS data were provided courtesy of the NASA SeaWiFS project and Orbital Sciences Corporation. We are grateful to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for the data used to draw Figure 13.
David Bowers has, over the course of many years, enjoyed discussions about tides and tide-related phenomena memorably with Katherine Braithwaite, John Bye, John Brubaker, Carl Friedrichs, Mattias Green, Antonio Hoguane, Geof Lennon, Rick Nunes, Tom Rippeth, Larry Sanford, John Simpson, Martin White, and Phil Woodworth, amongst others. The fruits of those discussions adorn these pages. Faith Bowers kindly allowed her husband to disappear into his study for many hours to write his part of this book and still had the patience to tell him gracefully where he could make improvements.
Martyn Roberts is grateful to Malen for her careful reading of his contribution to this book, and to Dylan (a name derived from the Welsh word for tide) for sharing his daddy with both a computer and the sea. Kate Johnson, Howard Jukes, and Iris Verhagen are thanked for chasing tidal bores. Victoria Johnson’s literary knowledge was very helpful and is surely unsurpassed. Hans Tore Rapp and Furu Mienis are thanked for all things deep sea. This book was in part inspired by conversations about the tides over many years: the Brothers Grant (Meilyr and Aeddan), Mervyn, Susan, and Geraint Roberts, and David Broadbent are responsible, although probably none can remember exactly how, where, and when.