Okay, I had to look this stuff up, to see if I was just crazy. I probably am, because I used Wikipedia, but at least I have
some backup for what I thought was true.
Regarding the sun setting into the water vs the moon rising from it:
First of all, the moon's orbit is
not in the same plane as that of the earth's, so even with a shoreline that takes up exactly 180 degrees of the horizon (he hinted) it's entirely possible for the moon to rise out of water and the sun to set in it, in whatever order.
Secondly, if you were on a smallish island (say, for a beach vacation - when
else do your kids have time to build a sand castle?), facing north on a curved coastline, it's likely you would (seem to) see
both the sun and moon rise from and set into water. The farther south you go during the Northern Hemisphere's summer, the more likely that would be.
Look up Taipei, for instance, on your favourite mapping website and imagine the sunrise and sunset there. Or Port Austin, Michigan. I bet Jeffrey Ford lives in or has visited just such a place.
The East and West coasts are not the only shorelines available, even if you forget there are places in the world other than the U.S.
Regarding:
the water not being at it's high point yet when the moon is directly overhead (which is your basic condition for a lunar high tide)
My vague recollection from a
long time ago was that the tides actually lag behind the moon somewhat, but in a short search, I can find no specific support of that claim, so I may have misread or just have dreamt it. However, what I
was able to find was this bit from Wikipedia's article on tides (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide):
The shape of the shoreline and the ocean floor change the way that tides propagate, so there is no simple, general rule for predicting the time of high water from the position of the Moon in the sky.
Finally:
Hello! Fairies! Sandcastle fairies! Ship fairies! Imaginary beings! And you quibble about where the
moon rises?