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The UN Agenda 2030 promotes safe access to green spaces, and the Ocean Decade aims to enhance humanity’s preparedness for ocean hazards and its relationship with the ocean. The tide is not considered an ocean hazard, yet half of the world’s coastline is susceptible to tides rising more than two meters in a single tidal cycle and globally >300,000 people per annum lose their lives to drowning. We undertook the first nationally representative survey of public understanding of tide, revealing that over a quarter of the British and Irish public struggled to read a basic tide table. More than one in seven reported having been cut off by the tide, or nearly so. Common misconceptions leading to cut off included the tide coming in much faster and stronger than expected, and often from a different direction. This demonstrates a national failure to understand the variability in tidal movement—one of the most fundamental aspects of the ocean. As the “ocean literacy” agenda advocates for increased access and connection to the ocean, to enable responsible delivery of ocean literacy, it is crucial to understand and increase the public knowledge of tidal variability. This will enable people to enjoy safe access and positive “emoceans” around the rapidly changing, and increasingly risky, marine environment of the future. We suggest considering the addition of a new essential principle of ocean science aiming to improve societal tidal literacy and risk recognition on the coast.