January 2011 (ROTM#25) Barlings Beach, New South Wales, Australia

Happy New Year everyone! It's still early in the summer here in Australia, but rip current drownings have been few and far between this year, which is great. Of course, there's a lot of factors to consider such as weather, water temperature, lack of waves etc., but lets hope some of the rip current education is paying off.

This picture is from a beach on the South Coast of New South Wales and it's fascinating. 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. Rips flow fast enough to transport sand offshore and it's another way to spot them. Look at the picture more closely though and you can see that there are indeed, deeper darker channels running through the surf in line with the sand clouds.

The message here is that some rips are easier to spot than others and you really need to spend 5 or 10 minutes watching the surf before you go in to see if there are any rips around. Thanks to Malcolm Buck for contributing his photo.

Plumes of sand are there for a reason