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What role did nature play to break the logjam in the Suez Canal?

Even a piece of celestial can bring good luck. Well, this celestial body is the moon that made it easier for the engineers to effectively refloat the giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for more than a week.

On Sunday, the so-called “Warm moon” caused high spring tide which was around 18inches high almost 46 centimeters higher than normal. According to NASA, on Monday this made it easy to straighten the dislodging of the ship.

According to National Ocean Service, Spring tides have nothing to do with the season because it’s a historical term when the tides “spring forth” occurs during the new as well as the full moons.

However, there are around 12 to 13 moons in a year in which around six to eight are associated with a tide high enough to do something which happened on Monday. As per the CNN meteorologist, this takes place because the moon is closest to Earth at those full moons. He also said, “It is not uncommon for these tides to be a foot higher than other high tides during the year when the moon is further from the Earth. It is no doubt that these high tides were part of the strategy for dislodging such a massive ship.”

Moreover, these six to eight full moons are called the supermoons as the moon appears bigger and brighter in the sky. In the month of March supermoon was the first and is expected to be the fourth brightest moon of 2021.

Well, the Native American tribes in the US South call the March full moon the Worm Moon because the earthworm casts and soil that the worm digests becomes visible as the ground thaws at time of the year.

However, on Monday evening after tugboats spending several hours working to free the bow of the Ever Given Container ship after dislodging the stern earlier in the day. The traffic resumed in both directions of the Suez Canal.

With triumph and relief, the successful refloating was met. Hundreds of vessels have been trapped in the pivotal shipping lane since 23rd March preparing to restart their journeys. However, the challenge now is dealing with the backlog and congestion of the ships that worked day and night can take more than three days to clear.

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