Asilah 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 05:00 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 Africa/Casablanca local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Sun 17 May (range 3.0m). Next neap on Thu 21 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.

Asilah is 40 kilometres south of Tangier on the open Atlantic coast — a walled Phoenician-Portuguese city built on a low cliff above the ocean. The town is compact: the old medina is enclosed by intact Portuguese fortification walls from 1471, and the sea-facing bastions look directly over the Atlantic. The tidal regime is semidiurnal Atlantic with a mean range of approximately 1.5 metres and a spring range of around 2.0 metres — the same full Atlantic signal as Tangier, untouched by the Strait's attenuation effect. On a spring high tide, the sea comes close to the base of the seaward walls; at low water, a broad shelf of sand and rock is exposed below the cliffs. The medina of Asilah is whitewashed — intensely, consistently white — with painted blue, turquoise, and ochre doorways and a lane structure tight enough that the main streets are barely wide enough for two people to pass. The walls are the canvas for the Moussem Culturel International d'Asilah, an annual arts festival running since 1978 in which international and Moroccan muralists paint directly on the medina walls. The murals are refreshed annually; the current layer is always a fresh commission while previous layers are painted over, making the medina an accumulation of visual layers that is re-made each year. The festival also includes music, poetry, and lectures; it typically runs in late July to early August. The beach at Asilah runs north and south of the medina headland. The northern beach is the longer stretch — approximately 3 kilometres of open Atlantic sand reaching toward Tangier. The beach is wide at low water (40 to 60 metres of exposed sand) and narrows significantly at high water as the tide covers the lower beach shelf. The swell at Asilah comes directly from the northwest without Strait or bay attenuation; 1 to 2 metre shore break is common from October through March. The beach north of the medina is also used for horse riding — a common activity in this section of the Moroccan Atlantic coast. Fishing from the walls of the southern bastion and the rocky platform below the medina targets sea bream (sargo, daurade), moray eel, and occasionally sea bass. The tidal current running along the Moroccan Atlantic coast strengthens at the cliff base of the medina headland, creating the kind of food-carrying current that concentrates fish. Low to mid-incoming tide is the most productive fishing window from the walls. The train from Tangier serves Asilah — the station is 1.5 kilometres from the medina, walkable. Journey time from Tangier is approximately 45 minutes. The town has a small guesthouse and riad sector inside the medina walls; most visitors to the medina arrive from Tangier or Rabat as day trips. Tide predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height. For authoritative official tide predictions for the Asilah coast, consult SHOMAR — Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine.