Transcribe

When you stand at the edge of a tidal flat, the water looks like it is doing nothing at all.

To the eye it reads as flat, still, and more or less empty.

But set the survey charts and the sediment tables aside for a second, and you find that the flat is a working landscape that rebuilds itself twice a day,

shifting sand, stranding boats, and cutting new channels that were not on the map last week.