February 2021 (ROTM#146) Coledale Beach, Northern Illawarra, NSW, Australia

It's been the summer of rips here on the east coast of Australia as I've seen spectacular rip currents at every surf beach I've visited. While there's been a few drownings, overall we've been lucky thanks to a lot of rain early on keeping crowds down and the fantastic efforts of lifeguards and lifesavers. 

Educating people about how to identify rip currents remains an ongoing challenge and there's always been some debate about whether static photos, like the one's I put up on the Rip of the Month, are actually helpful. Often the photos are taken from the perspective of a high vantage point that most people wouldn't normally see the beach from. Some rips are also easier to spot than others. But you have to start somewhere.

Coledale Beach is in the Northern Illawarra region of New South Wales, just south of Sydeny and the Royal National Park and is unusual in that it is backed by a campground. It normally has two boundary rip currents running out along the reefs at both ends of the beach. This year is different as there's a prominent channel rip running straight out the middle of the beach. This picture shows two perspectives of the same rip. The image on the left was taken from the public walking path along the main road and has a bit of height as well as looking at the rip current from the side. Just past beyond the red and yellow flags you can see the narrow dark gap between the whitewater heading offshore. That's the rip. It's been there for weeks and has also carved out an erosional embayment on the shoreline. 

The image on the right is the same rip taken a few minutes later, but from the perspective of the sand dune behind the beach. You can hopefully clearly see the dark gap which looks like a green road heading offshore! The lifeguards have placed a warning sign right in front of the rip.

So which perspective is easier to see the rip? Unfortunately, this was a 'classic' rip and not all rips are as easy to identify as this one.

Finally, several research studies over the years have shown that the ability of beachgoers to spot rips is poor and a recent study that I was involved in, which you can read about here, Beachgoers' ability to identify rip currents at a beach in situ shows that many beachgoers who are able to identify rip currents in photographs are unable to do so when asked to identify an actual rip current on the beach. So perhaps using video is a better educational approach than static images?

What’s easier? Side view or straight on?