March 2016 (ROTM#87) Tel Aviv, Israel

This months' location is a little bit different and certainly a little unexpected. I don't know much about beaches in Israel other than that they obviously had some and that some early rip current studies were done there in the 1980's. But I'd never seen a picture of one until I was contacted by some members of Israel Surf Life Saving who are visiting Australia doing some training.

As it turns out there is a big rip current drowning problem along Israeli beaches and it's fairly complicated as there's all sorts of different cultures with different beach behaviour involved. After the meeting I did a Google image search for 'Israel beaches' and this picture came up.

It's a bit fuzzy, but guess what you see? Two very narrow, but distinct rip current channels in the foreground. Once again,these  channelised 'dark gap' rip currents are similar to rips you find around the world.

You might not think that Mediterranean beaches have  many rips, but Israel is on the eastern end of the Med and has a very long fetch when winds are from the west. Certainly enough to generate decent sized waves...and rips. 

Israel has rips too