November 2017 (ROTM#107) Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia

You run down to the beach on a gorgeous sunny day and the waves are small and the water looks clean and inviting. Do you ignore the signs warning of dangerous currents and just run straight in? Do you notice that the rescue board must be there for a reason? Do you think how good it is to have the beach to yourself? Do you jump in that nice narrow dark area where not as many waves are breaking (aka the rip). Or do you walk along the beach to find the red and yellow flags and swim between them? 

 There's lots of decisions to be made when it comes to taking a swim, but you need to be so careful...rips can occur even when waves are small and often they can be incredibly strong. All lifeguards will tell you that these are the days that people get into trouble, not the stormy ones.

 Thanks to John Triantafilis, a colleague and soil scientist from UNSW Sydney for the pic - I taught him everything he knows about rips!

The signs are there for a reason