Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 21:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are America/Mazatlan local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Sat 16 May (range 2.0m). Next neap on Wed 20 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Cabo San Lucas sits at the southern tip of the long Mexican peninsula that separates the Sea of Cortez from the open Pacific, where the two ocean systems meet at Land's End — a granite arch in the water at the foot of cliffs the locals call Finisterra. The famous Lover's Beach at the base of the arch is a tide-cycle destination because the swimmable Pacific-side cove is only walk-accessible at low water through a sand-and-rock corridor that floods on the rising flood. The tide here is a moderate mixed semidiurnal signal — two highs and two lows of unequal size each day — with a mean range at the harbour gauge inside the IGY Marina of about 1.1 metres, climbing past 1.6 metres on the largest spring tides and dropping near 0.6 on neaps. The Sea of Cortez side runs a different signal from the Pacific side: the gulf is a long narrow basin that amplifies the tide as it propagates north, and at its head near Puerto Peñasco and the Colorado River delta the range exceeds nine metres on spring tides — among the largest tidal ranges in the eastern Pacific. Cabo sits at the bottom of the gulf where the two regimes mix, so the local pattern shows both Pacific open-coast forcing and the smaller-amplitude head-of-gulf return signal. The defining recreational use of the table is the world-class sportfishing industry — striped marlin, dorado, tuna, and rooster fish are read for the bite-window timing on the change of tide, and the Cabo charter fleet at the IGY Marina runs by tide-and-bite calendar through the October-through-December peak season. Surf at Costa Azul on the Pacific side, Cerritos up the coast, and the Pacific-facing breaks at Todos Santos read the swell more than the tide; the protected swimming inside the Cabo Bay at Médano Beach is workable across the cycle. The whale-watching season for Pacific grey whales runs January through March and the calving lagoons up the Pacific coast at San Ignacio and Magdalena Bay run on different tidal regimes that the local guide fleet reads for the breaching windows. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page; for authoritative Mexican tide data, the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) Dirección General Adjunta de Oceanografía and CICESE publish the official tide tables and operate the gauge network.