The lowest tide you can stand in at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve during posted hours in 2026 is −1.86 ft MLLW on Wednesday, December 23, at 4:22 PM, computed from NOAA's Pillar Point Harbor station 9414131. The year's deepest daylight low (−1.90 ft, December 24) bottoms out ten minutes after the reserve's 5 PM winter close. And the last dawn minus-tide run of 2026 — August 11–14, happening now — mostly belongs to the gate, not to you: its deepest low, −1.13 ft on Wednesday, August 12, at 5:12 AM, is back underwater by 7:50 AM, ten minutes before the reserve opens.
When is the lowest tide at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in 2026?
Tidewindow computes windows for the Moss Beach reef from the nearest NOAA prediction station, Pillar Point Harbor (9414131) in Half Moon Bay. Here are the eight deepest daylight lows of 2026, ranked by depth, with one column the tide chart never shows you: whether the moment of low water falls inside the reserve's posted hours.
| Rank | Date | Low (ft MLLW) | Time of low | Low inside posted hours? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thu, Dec 24 | −1.90 | 5:10 PM | No — 10 min after the 5 PM close |
| 2 | Wed, Dec 23 | −1.86 | 4:22 PM | Yes — 38 min before close |
| 3 | Tue, Jul 14 | −1.79 | 5:33 AM | No — 2 h 27 min before the 8 AM open |
| 4 | Wed, Nov 25 | −1.77 | 5:20 PM | No — 20 min after close |
| 5 | Mon, Jul 13 | −1.72 | 4:45 AM | No — 3 h 15 min before open |
| 6 | Fri, Dec 25 | −1.72 | 5:58 PM | No — 58 min after close |
| 7 | Thu, Nov 26 | −1.68 | 6:12 PM | No — 1 h 12 min after close |
| 8 | Tue, Nov 24 | −1.64 | 4:31 PM | Yes — 29 min before close |
Computed 2026-07-03 from NOAA station 9414131 predictions; the July rows are now history, and the six remaining autumn and winter rows were re-verified against current predictions 2026-08-11. Hours per San Mateo County Parks.
Two of eight. That is the whole story of this reserve in one column. San Mateo County Parks opens Fitzgerald at 8:00 AM every day of the year, holidays included, and closes it on a seasonal schedule: 8:00 PM through Labor Day, then down in steps — 7:00 PM after Labor Day, 6:00 PM from October 12, and 5:00 PM from November 2 through February.
Why do the gate hours beat the tide table here?
Look at where the deep lows land. The July cluster bottomed out between 4:45 and 5:33 AM — dawn events, hours before the gate. The November and December cluster bottoms out between 4:22 and 6:12 PM, right as the winter close arrives. The moon does not consult the county.
The days that thread the needle are worth circling. December 23 gives you the window from 1:30 PM until the 5:00 PM close — about 3.5 hours — with the −1.86 ft low itself at 4:22 PM. November 24 is nearly as good: −1.64 ft at 4:31 PM, with roughly 3 h 15 min of usable window after 1:45 PM. These are the same new- and full-moon alignments that produce the season's king high tides, so if you're tracking those, the 2026–2027 king tide calendar covers the other end of the same curve.
What's left in 2026, and how much of it fits inside the gates?
July's dawn cluster is history — its deepest low (−1.79 ft on July 14) hit at 5:33 AM, almost two and a half hours before the gate. Here is every day worth planning around for the rest of 2026, chronological, with the only column that matters at this reserve: how much of the tide window survives the posted hours.
| Date | Low (ft) | Time of low | Tide window | Inside posted hours | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, Aug 11 | −1.21 | 4:29 AM | 1:55–7:15 AM | none — ends 45 min before the 8 AM open | 52 |
| Wed, Aug 12 | −1.13 | 5:12 AM | 2:45–7:50 AM | none — ends 10 min before open | 56 |
| Thu, Aug 13 | −0.84 | 5:53 AM | 3:35–8:20 AM | 20 min | 55 |
| Fri, Aug 14 | −0.37 | 6:32 AM | 4:30–8:40 AM | 40 min | 54 |
| Sat, Aug 15 | +0.23 | 7:08 AM | 5:30–8:45 AM | 45 min | 48 |
| Sun, Sep 27 | +0.19 | 5:57 PM | 4:20–7:40 PM | 2 h 40 min (7 PM close) | 52 |
| Sun, Oct 25 | −0.52 | 4:59 PM | 2:50–7:15 PM | 3 h 10 min (6 PM close) | 68 |
| Tue, Nov 24 | −1.64 | 4:31 PM | 1:45–7:40 PM | 3 h 15 min (5 PM close) | 79 |
| Wed, Dec 23 | −1.86 | 4:22 PM | 1:30–7:35 PM | 3 h 30 min (5 PM close) | 82 |
Computed 2026-08-11 from NOAA station 9414131 predictions; hours per the San Mateo County Parks seasonal schedule. Scores (0–100) weigh tide depth and daylight only — they don't know about gates, which is why August 12 scores the best of the summer's remainder while offering zero minutes inside the reserve.
The August 11–14 run — the year's last morning minus tides with usable daylight (the only later ones, August 25–27 and September 6–10, bottom out between 1:30 and 5:05 AM in the dark) — is the gate problem in its purest form. The two deepest mornings end before the reserve opens at all; what the gate concedes is the shallow tail of the run, 20 to 45 minutes on the 13th through the 15th, and by Saturday the 15th the low isn't even negative. If you have somewhere else on this coast to be those mornings, be there instead — the Pillar Point reef guide covers the unfenced side of the same tide. After that the story flips: the good lows migrate to autumn and winter afternoons, where the 8 AM gate is irrelevant and the seasonal close becomes the deadline. Sunday, October 25 is the standout before the king season — a −0.52 ft low at 4:59 PM on a weekend, with the low itself an hour before the 6 PM close. Day-by-day grids are on the August and September 2026 calendars for this station.
By the monthly count, 42 daylight minus tides remain in 2026: August's 4 (the dawn run above), September's 3 as the lows migrate to evening, then the recovery — 9 in October, 12 in November, and 14 in December.
What will you actually see out there?
The recent observation record near this station is a nudibranch parade. In the last 60 days, the six most-logged species within 5 km of station 9414131 were all sea slugs: opalescent nudibranch (87 observations), spotted dorid (68), Hopkins' rose nudibranch (56), Hilton's aeolid (50), stubby dendronotid (42), and hammerhead doto (37), with the gumboot chiton (36) the first non-slug on the list. Tallied 2026-08-11 by the Tidewindow pipeline.
Look, don't touch. County regulations are explicit: observe marine life "by looking only," don't handle animals or place them in containers even briefly, don't remove shells, vegetation, rocks, or marine life, and watch your step around barnacles, anemones, and mussels. The reserve sits within the Montara State Marine Reserve, where the take of all living marine resources is prohibited — no fishing anywhere in the reserve.
What are the hours, rules, and parking?
Per San Mateo County Parks and the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve:
- Hours: opens 8:00 AM daily year-round; closes 8:00 PM April–August, tapering to 5:00 PM from November 2 through February. Hours can change for weather or emergencies.
- Cost: none — no charge for individual admission or parking.
- Parking: the lot is on Lake Street between California and Nevada Streets; the reserve address is 200 Nevada Ave, Moss Beach.
- Groups: fewer than 15 people, no reservation needed; 15 or more require a reservation (no fee).
- Dogs: not allowed at the tidepools; permitted on the Coastal Trail only.
On safety, the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve put it plainly: "never turn your back on the ocean when you are out on the rocks – a big wave can come along any time!" Their rule of thumb matches our arrive-by math — pools are workable for at least an hour either side of the low, stretching to two or more on negative tides.
How are these windows computed?
Station 9414131's published harmonic constituents are thin by NOAA standards — the agency's constituent notes describe them as the average of three 29-day analyses, with the two seasonal constituents borrowed from San Francisco (station 9414290). Tidewindow takes NOAA's predicted highs and lows for the station and reconstructs the curve between them by cosine interpolation, so window edges (rounded to 5 minutes) are estimates; the low heights and times are NOAA's own. These are astronomical predictions, not observations — the full formula set is on the methodology page.
To turn any of these dates into a plan, the Tide Window Finder gives arrive-by times for every upcoming window, and the Trip Picker filters for weekends — useful at a reserve where only 2 of the year's 8 deepest daylight lows fit inside the gates.