October 2017 (ROTM#106) Stanwell Park, NSW, AustraliaBlog Post Title Three

I have to admit, I am struggling a bit to find pictures to keep posting every month. I've used up my own best rip current pictures and it's tricky to find pictures that are a bit different. But yesterday, I was on the beach and this rip current seemed to capture a lot of important messages. It was a holiday weekend and the beach was packed. People were lying on the beach everywhere, including well outside the red and yellow flagged area. The water was cold and so not many people were swimming, but if the people in this picture wanted to have a quick dip, where do you think they would go?

There's a fairly narrow area of darker water that starts on the shoreline to the right of the photo that looks good. That's actually a deep channel called a 'feeder' carrying water from along the beach out into the narrow, but fast flowing 'rip neck' that is the dark gap heading offshore. It was one of the strongest flowing rips I've ever seen as well. So it looks like an idyllic scene, but it wouldn't take much for things to go tragically wrong. It's so important to be able to spot rips if you're not going to swim where the lifeguards are!

No lifeguards. Where would you swim?