Tidal bore

One of the great things about our new apartment is that we have a fantastic view of the Qiantiang river. It is nice to sit on the balcony and watch the river.  In the evenings, when the weather is nice, we like to take walks along the river. 

The river empties into a bay, and the unusual shape of this creates the world's largest tidal bore. You don't know what a tidal bore is?  Well, I did not either.  Basicly, during the high tide, the ocean backs up into the river. In October, this causes a rather large wave. " The tide rushing into the river mouth from the bay causes a bore which can reach up to 9 metres (30 ft) in height, and travel at up to 40 km per hour (25 miles an hour). [The bore is] known locally as the Silver (or Black) Dragon." Wikipedia

We knew it was the time of the year that the bore happens, but we did not know exactly when it was.  For a few days, we had been seeing people show up along the river int he late afternoon. Then on the biggest day, there was a huge crowd.

We went up to the top floor of our building to watch.  At first we just watched out the window, then we made our way to the roof.

Can you see the bore coming?  It is that wave across the river.

 Here you can see the wave breaking along the banks.

The noise you hear in the video is the wind and someone's AC near where we were standing.  You can see the wave breaking on the far side of the river.

Some years the bore is much bigger, and it is much higher at different places along the river.  It was nice to be able to see this without having to be in the huge crowd.