Stay by tidal water through a whole turn of the tide

The Recipe

1. Look up the tide times for the nearest tidal water, a coast, an estuary, a tidal river reach, and pick a low tide with a high one following, or the reverse.
2. Get there around the turn, with the whole six hours of the change ahead of you.
3. Before anything moves, mark the waterline: set a stone, or read it against a step, a mooring post, the leg of a jetty.
4. Walk the exposed ground while it's yours, the low-tide beach, the mud, the weeded rocks that spend most of the day underwater.
5. Come back to your mark and watch the water find it again, then pass it, faster than you'd credit once it gets going.
6. On a tidal river, watch for the moment the current itself stops and reverses, the water running backwards on the flood.
7. Eat something you brought, sitting, while the level does the work.
8. Leave once the water has fully taken back the ground you walked, and look again at where you'd been standing.