March 2020 (ROTM#135) Merry Beach, NSW, Australia

Many of the rip current drownings that occur in Australia take place on beaches that are unpatrolled by professional lifeguards or volunteer surf lifesavers. When people choose to swim on unpatrolled beaches, the only thing that is keeping them safe is how much they understand about beach hazards such as rips and dangerous breaking waves...or luck. Not surprisingly, this is not a desirable situation!

Several years ago, a student of mine named Campbell McKay published a study in the journal Tourism Management called 'Putting tourists in harms way - Coastal Tourist Parks and Hazardous unpatrolled surf beaches in New South Wales, Australia' 

This study clearly showed that many popular tourist accommodations on the south coast of New South Wales are situated closest to an unpatrolled surf beach that is rated as being hazardous. This picture is of one of those beaches on the south coast - Merry Beach.

Merry Beach is an easily accessible beach for visitors and has a popular caravan park situated virtually behind the beach. However, the nearest beach patrolled by lifeguards/lifesavers is at Mollymook (35 km to the north) or Bateman's Bay (48 km to the south). While beach visitors in Australia are always encouraged to  'Swim Between the Red and Yellow Flags' and to never swim at unpatrolled beaches, it is unreasonable to assume that people staying next to Merry Beach are going to go out of their way to drive those long distances.

While this picture looks idyllic, there are two large rip currents on the beach. There is a boundary rip against the headland and rocks at the northern part of the beach (bottom of photo) and a rip current towards the far end of the beach. There also appears to be another boundary rip at the far end against the rocks. All of these rips occupy deep channels and appear as inviting calm and clear water. In this situation, the saying 'white is nice, green is mean' certainly applies when it comes to rips. The safest place to swim at this beach would be where there is a lot of wave breaking activity and whitewater. But how many people know that?

No lifeguards. Where would you swim?