Dear Authors
Thank-you for your revised version. However, I need to tell you that referee 1 wanted “major revisions” and to see the revised version again. I think this means that they were expecting rather more revision. I guess that may be in respect of motivation and the wider significance (both reviewers only rated the significance as “fair”).
So I am asking you please to consider doing rather more in response to (both) reviewers’ comments, so that I can sensibly send it back for re-review, at least to the one that asked for it.
Below are some specific comments/suggestions of my own.
Page 2 line 10. “. . properties of surface currents”?
Page 2 line 27. “. . would result in additional conclusions.” ?
Page 3 line 5. “. . (“wan” is Chinese for bay) . .”
Page 3 lines 17-18. “The semidiurnal and diurnal tidal components of the currents in Nan-Wan Bay are approximately equal in their magnitude (Lee et al., 1997) but are modulated by the spring-neap tidal cycle. The temperature . .”
Page 3 line 27. The meaning of “semidiurnal peak” is not clear to me. Is it the maximum current within the 12-hour tidal cycle, or in the spring-neap cycle, or saying that semidiurnal exceeds diurnal? If this is clear I don’t think you need to refer to the “form factor”.
Pages 6-7. There is a lot of emphasis on the asymmetry. In your response to referee 2 you say “we find . . to be fundamental and interesting enough to be considered”. I can accept this but it would help if you stated more about why they are interesting in the revised text. I agree they could test model results. For example, there could be a relation with the degree of non-linearity and rectification (which models might find more difficult).
Page 7 lines 33-34. This sentence seems to say much the same thing twice. Also (line 34) “the surface current asymmetry” does not apply in the Gulf of Elat which the sentence is discussing, and (line 33) you don’t need “suggests that it has a weak tidal signal” since you already know that the Gulf of Elat tides are weak.
Page 8 lines 12-14. Twice you say in the response that “we stress that we purposely choose such different environments . .” but I don’t really see this at page 8 lines 12-14 (I am not sure which version is referred to). Perhaps this could be added with reasons (why “purposely”) in the appropriate place.
Page 8 end of Summary. Add “In addition, the statistical characteristics of the various regions should be used as a benchmark for model performance”? as in your response to reviewer 1 §5.

Dear Authors
Thank-you for your re-revised manuscript and for pointing out the second comment of Reviewer 1 - I apologise that I missed this.
Here follow just a couple of details. Please also be aware that there may be changes during copy-editing; you should check that the final version has your intended meaning after any changes.

Please use “metre” spelling for the unit of length (also kilometre etc).

Page 7 lines 20-21. “. . asymmetry is significant, being well outside these error bars.” (Not exactly “and” because “well outside these error bars” is supporting evidence, not something else).