The moon does some strange things to our planet.

As we learned last August, it can sometimes get between us and our love affair with the sun, causing an eclipse. Believe it or not, the moon has a bit to do with our seasons — its gravitational pull keeps the planet at that perfect 23.5° axial tilt: without its gravity counteracting the sun, we’d be wobbling all over the place. It even keeps our day at around 24 hours — without the moon, we’d be spinning so quickly that our day would only last about 7 hours. And it provides a nice little night light, illuminating our nighttime hours so that we can find our way home after an evening at the bar.

But, most importantly, without the moon we wouldn’t have a name for our release this week. As you likely know, the moon is what’s responsible for our tides. The amount of gravity it provides makes the oceans’ water bulge ever so slightly, creating a low tide. Then, as the moon moves and we rotate, the bulge moves with it, creating a high tide.

Then the process starts over again. And, between them, we have what’s known as an “ebb tide” — the water is receding, the planet is spinning beneath the water, and the moon is moving to its next position.

And that’s kind of where we are right now in Cape May: our tides of visitors will be returning soon.

And, of course, we’ve got a beer for that.