They’re calling it a “heart-shaped beach”. Needless to say it quickly went viral after being captured on video from an aircraft patrolling the Yangtze River. And it had viewers immediately commenting as to any possible romantic intentions on the part of our favourite river.
The apparition was in fact a partially-submerged sandbank, which appeared seemingly without reason, along the Yangtze in Zhenjiang City, neighbouring Nanjing in our own Jiangsu Province.
While local media took several days to jump on the unusual story, Modern Express has reported the bizarre phenomenon took place as long ago as 4 January.
That was when officers with the Zhenjiang Yangtze River Porpoise Provincial Nature Reserve Management Office were carrying out their daily airborne-patrol-flyby monitoring of the Reserve.
The videographer, a Mr. Ma, told reporters that the encounter happened to the north of Jiaobei Beach, about 300 metres offshore. The anomaly appeared just after 14:00 that day and lasted no more than 3 minutes.
Ma further commented that on the same day, there were waterfowl landing, flying and cruising around from time to time, forming a vivid ecological beauty.
Staff with the Management Office explained the anomaly is a unique natural phenomenon. At high tide, when the River water rises to a certain level, different-shaped sandbanks can appear in the River’s channel by its banks. The phenomenon occurs only in the dry season in winter and is extremely rare.
Elsewhere, alert and water-minded readers may also remember another very odd incident from last year, one out of Ireland. On 18 June, the waters in harbours at Union Hall in west Cork rapidly drained for no known reason, in a kind of reverse tide, dropping 70 centimetres in just 5 minutes, before filling back up again.
Then there are the unusual water-based phenomena which happen at predictable intervals. Here in Nanjing, we are not far from one of the biggest of all. In Zhejiang Province, the Qiantang River that empties into the Hangzhou Bay produces an extraordinary surging tide on the 18th day of the 8th lunar month, whereby the Bay’s bottleneck shape can give rise to waves over 9 metres in height.
Finally, once again on almost the other side of the world, the waters of the Firth of Forth in Scotland are unusual for producing not two tides per day, but four.
With the incoming tide, waters fall back almost as much as a metre, to then resume their forward flow. The same happens as the tide goes out. Locals have it that St. Mungo, Patron Saint and Founder of the City of Glasgow who was born on the Firth’s shores, ran his vessel aground with the tide going out, and then simply used his miraculous powers to bring the waters back in.
Or maybe it was his heart-shaped boat…
