No. 03
About Saltwrack
An independent, slow-moving almanac kept by people who would rather be standing in a creek.
What this is
Saltwrack began as a notebook of tide times and bird sightings pinned inside a shed door. It grew into a calendar, then a glossary, then a habit of writing things down before the tide took them.
It is not a navigation aid, a forecast, or an authority. It is a way of paying attention to a place that changes shape twice a day.
How this site is made
Hand-written HTML, one stylesheet, and a single small script on the home page that draws the tide curve. There are no cookies, no analytics, no forms, no web fonts, and nothing loaded from anywhere else. The whole site would fit comfortably in a lunchbox.
Colophon
- Type
- Whichever good serif your system provides: Iowan Old Style, Palatino or Georgia, with a monospace for labels and numerals.
- Colours
- Paper, ink, sea and rust, with a darker evening version if your device prefers it.
- Tide model
- A single cosine with a period of 12 hours 25 minutes. It knows nothing of estuaries, wind, or pressure.
- Motion
- The wave at the foot of each page drifts gently, and stops entirely if you ask your device for reduced motion.
Getting in touch
Letters are welcome in bottles. Failing that, leave a note under the third stone at the sluice, and weigh it down well.