Cape Town, Western Cape 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 06:00 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/Johannesburg local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Sat 16 May (range 1.7m). Next spring tide on Sun 17 May (range 1.7m). Next neap on Fri 22 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.

Cape Town sits on the Atlantic-facing shore of the Cape Peninsula at the south-western tip of Africa, with Table Mountain at its back, the V&A Waterfront harbour at its feet, and Cape Point an hour south down the peninsula where the cold Benguela current up the Atlantic side brushes past the warm Agulhas current sweeping down the Indian Ocean side. The textbook two-oceans meeting line is at Cape Agulhas a hundred and fifty kilometres east, but the temperature contrast between Camps Bay on the Atlantic and Muizenberg on False Bay can run ten degrees on the same afternoon. The tide here is a moderate semidiurnal signal — two highs and two lows of comparable size each day, twelve and a half hours apart — with a mean range at the harbour gauge of about 1.4 metres, climbing past 1.8 metres on the largest spring tides and dropping near 0.9 on neaps. The defining wind is the Cape Doctor, a south-easter that sweeps down off Table Mountain through the summer, scours the city clean of pollution, and pushes the surface water offshore on the Atlantic side, dropping inshore sea-surface temperatures into single digits even in February. The Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront runs a tidal-pool exhibit that exchanges water with the harbour each cycle and is one of the better introductions to the local intertidal you will find in any city aquarium. Surf at Muizenberg, kelp-forest dives off Cape Point, kayak crossings to the Robben Island heritage site, the rock pools at St James and Kalk Bay, the long sand at Noordhoek and Long Beach Kommetjie, and the protected swimming at Clifton's four beaches all read the table for different windows. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page; for authoritative South African tide data, the South African Navy Hydrographic Office (SANHO) publishes the official tide tables and operates the Cape Town reference gauge.