December 2019 (ROTM#132) Stanwell Park Beach, NSW, Australia

Poor old Stanwell Park Beach in the Northern Illawarra, south of Sydney, is a repeat offender on this page mostly because I live close by, but it's also notorious for rip currents. It's an extremely hazardous beach and the rip currents and dangerous shorebreak definitely make it a challenging beach. If you ever visit, you MUST swim between the red and yellow flags and if they aren't there, don't go in unless you are an extremely competent ocean swimmer or surfer, and even then I'd think hard about that decision.

 This picture is an example of why Stanwell Park can be so tricky. There are two rips in this picture. The first is the narrow dark gap flowing diagonally to the left near the person walking along the beach. This rip is being fed by a longshore feeder current occupying a deeper channel running along the shoreline. The rip has also been there for several days (if not a week or so), as it's carved out a curved rip embayment in the beach.

 The second is a monster. Further past that person is another dark gap flowing diagonally offshore....and it goes a LONG way offshore extending a good 20 to 30 m beyond the group of surfers. That's a good 150 to 200 m from the shoreline! And the waves are not that big to be honest, probably about 1.5 m, which is average for this coastline. 

 This is a classic 'textbook' rip in the sense that it's being fed water by alongshore feeder currents that converge into a narrow, seaward flowing rip neck that eventually slows down as an expanding rip head beyond the surf zone where the flow eventually stops. Do all rips do this? Nope, many re-circulate without flowing beyond the surf zone and a quick flick through many of the previous Rip of the Month pictures will show examples of that.

Monster rip. And the waves aren’t even that big!