The image was taken during pretty big wave conditions and hopefully you can see the rip as the highway of blue that is funnelling out from the middle of the beach.

Hawaii has a lot of fantastic beaches, but despite all the great surf, it's not particularly known for its rip currents. However, don't be fooled, there are some big rips around like this one in the middle of this beautiful black sand beach.

This picture is about as good as it gets. It's of a classic fixed rip snuggled between two sand bars at Shelly Beach, NSW which is on the Central Coast just north of Sydney.

One Mile Beach is a gem of a beach situated in the Port Stephens area. When you walk out at the southern end you are hit with this stunning vista and a normally gentle surf break.

You often get rips occurring where there are rock outcrops along beaches as they tend to focus wave energy and tend to help scour out channels.

The rip current is the hopefully obvious dark channelised gap heading out through the middle of the beach.

Rips on beaches with big tides tend to suddenly 'switch on' for short time periods around low tide.

Danang is home to China Beach, made famous as an R&R destination during the Vietnam War and is a stunning stretch of sandy beach that extends right down to the beautiful town of Hoi An, about 30 minutes south.

You can see the rip current in the middle of the photo thanks to a number of clues: i) there's a nice dark gap heading offshore - that's the rip channel; ii) there's a nice little 'bowl' in the beach.

This picture was sent to me by Alexis Emanuel who has sent me some amazing pictures of rip currents from France.

It's rare for people to drown in rip currents on a Sydney beach, but 2 people drowned in a rip current at Maroubra Beach in a week.

I preach 'dark gaps, dark gaps, dark gaps' through the breaking waves as the best way to spot a rip, but these rips are best spotted by the clouds of suspended sand heading out past the line of breaking waves.