August 2015 (ROTM#80) Rip Current Spotting Tutorial

Pictures of rips are great educational tools and certainly better than diagrams, but nothing beats the real thing. These are 3 short videos of the same rip at Stanwell Park, NSW, Australia taken over a period of about 2 months from different angles. The rip is channelised, but just watch and learn...it's more than just looking for dark gaps. The water of the seaward flowing rip has a distinctly different texture, it's choppy...and it's moving! Even though waves are coming in, it's moving out against them. They really are like rivers of the sea. Click on the images below to watch the videos!

Rip spotting vid #1 (super close up)

Rip spotting vid #2 (different rip, zoomed out a bit)

Rip spotting vid #3 (perspective from the beach)