July 2020 (ROTM#139) Hot Water Beach, New Zealand
One of my very first 'Rip of the Month' photos was in February 2009 (ROTM#2). I took that photo while visiting Hot Water Beach on the east coast of New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula in 1999. The beach is a famous tourist location due to it's natural hot springs that bubble up on the beach that allow you to have a spa-like experience. Tragically, the man in the photo drowned not long after the picture was taken. Despite the idyllic and seemingly calm water, he was taken offshore by a very subtle rip current, panicked and drowned and I was involved in bringing him back to the beach. It was a traumatic experience that really began my passion in educating people about rip currents and beach safety. As I later found out, Hot Water Beach is not normally so calm and rip current drownings are not uncommon - it's a tourist mecca and a dangerous beach - not a good combination.
Early this year in February I saw a post on the Facebook page of the Trust Waikato Hot Water Beach Lifeguard Service Inc with some spectacular pictures of Hot Water Beach taken by a drone. There is a crowd in the middle of the beach digging holes in the sand to make baths, right opposite the rock that appears in my ROTM#2 photo. What is most concerning are the pronounced rip currents either side of that rock...right in front of where people are bathing in the hot springs! It's a recipe for disaster. The rips are channelised and appear as narrow green gaps heading offshore either side of the rock and are shaped almost like a boomerang. There is also another larger rip in the foreground of the photo and several more all the way down the beach.
Fortunately the beach is lifeguarded by the Trust Waikato Hot Water Beach Lifeguards Service and they gratefully allowed me to use this image, which was provided by Jonty Abrahamson. If you ever visit Hot Water Beach - and many will once international travel opens up again post-COVID19, please, please be careful. Swim between the red and yellow flags if the lifeguards are on duty and if not...don't go in.
Big tourist location. Lots of rips.