Modern times

It "comes in as fast as a galloping horse": tides in Mont Saint-Michel

Today in class we studied what the tides are. You know, a regular rise and fall in the level of the sea, caused by the pull of the moon and sun;  and we talked about the tides in Mont Saint-Michel.

Well, I've found the following article in The Independent, an English newspaper, about something that happened in July: "Normandy 'island' Mont Saint-Michel cut off by extreme high tide" 

                         

Mont Saint-Michel  is an island commune in Normandy, France. 

The island has got strategic fortifications since ancient times, and since the eighth century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it gets its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it. On top God, the abbey and monastery, below this the Great halls, then stores and housing, and at the bottom, outside the walls, fishermen and farmers' housing.

In prehistoric times, the Mont was on dry land. As sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the coastal landscape, and several outcroppings of granite or granulite emerged in the bay, having resisted the wear and tear of the ocean better than the surrounding rocks.

The tides in Mont Saint-Michel bay are very impressive: they can vary greatly, at roughly 14 metres between high and low water marks. The tide goes out very quickly over some 10 kilometres, and comes in again just as quickly. The expression used is that it "comes in as fast as a galloping horse". Today, Mont Saint-Michel is only surrounded by water to become an island during the great equinox tides, fifty-three days a year and for a few hours. 

But the mount can still create many problems for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighbouring coast.