September 2020 (#141) Duranbah Beach, NSW Australia

Duranbah Beach, known as 'Dee-Bah' to the locals is the northernmost beach in New South Wales situated north of the Tweed River Entrance and the headland at Point Danger, which marks the boundary with Queensland. It's a great surf beach and like most surf beaches, has rip currents like the one dominating the middle of this photo (the prominent dark gap between the breaking waves).

Being so close to the Gold Coast, it's a very popular beach that tragically saw an international Indian student drown in a rip in late 2017. This drowning really raised a lot of questions about how to educate international students in Australia, and international visitors in general, about rip currents. 

The structure to the south of the training walls is part of the Tweed River Sand Bypassing project which is pumping sand building up against the northern end of the beach to the Gold Coast, which has helped create the famous 'Super Bank' surf break. Thanks to Gold Coast based documentary maker Jason Markland for the picture. Jason produced the fantastic National Geographic documentary 'Rip Current Heroes' that I was involved in, which you can watch here  if you want to learn more about rips. A North American version of this documentary is in development now and will hopefully be out next year.

Last beach in NSW before the QLD border - great surfing, dangerous for swimming