From what I remember of the Oceanography course I studied with the Open University - excellent course, excellent text books (which are across the room and my laptop is on my lap) - tides in various seas are constrained by the local structure - the waves do not simply go up and down like the white of an egg with no shell (the yolk being the solid Earth). In the semi-enclosed North Sea for example, the tidal waves rotate around a number of nodes. In the almost enclosed Mediterranean, the tidal range is constrained in its action. The Atlantic side of the Panama isthmus is actually in the semi-enclosed Caribbean, while the western side is in the open ocean. This would affect the range of the tides. And the time of maximum tide on each side.

Penny