It’s not often a Prime Minister (or a President for that matter) drowns, but it happened to Australian Prime Minster Harold Holt on December 17 in 1967

As the sign says, a shark was sighted, but is that a permanent sign? I don’t see any sharks, but I do see a very narrow rip current along the beach. It’s the green line through the whitewater of the surf.

I have never been to Brazil, but the beaches seem remarkably similar to many of those found in Australia – and there’s a lot of them - and rips!

I’ve always thought that movie cinemas are a great opportunity to educate people about rips and beach safety – what a wasted opportunity!

Dominical is considered to be a ‘hidden gem’ according to social media, which means that everyone goes there now, which is not necessarily a good thing given that the beaches along this stretch of coast experience high wave energy and big rip currents – it’s a surf coast.

This one was taken by a drone as part of some coastal geomorphology work being done on the southern Iceland coast by a colleague of mine named Sebastian Pitman from the University of Newcastle in the UK

This one is a little different. The other day I popped into a local store (Poppy’s at Thirroul!) in the Northern Illawarra near where I live and noticed they were selling drink coasters with a picture of a local beach – Woonona Beach.

Buddina Beach is one of the lesser known beaches of the Sunshine Coast, situated just north of Caloundra and below Maroochydore, but it’s typical of most of the beaches in the region in that it’s sandy and long and prone to waves and rips.

Bulli Beach is one of my favourite beaches in the Northern Illawarra. It’s sort of like Bondi without the crowds and it almost always has channelized rip currents separated by sandbars.

It’s time to breakaway from the south-east coast of Australia, where most of the Rip of the Month pictures have come from the last few years, and go somewhere exotic – like south-west France.

Not only is the beach mystical, it’s also unpatrolled by lifeguards and rip-prone. This picture is taken from beach level at low tide and there’s a nice little channel rip straight in front – yep, it’s the dark gap.

Lighthouse Beach is primarily used by surfers and 4WD’s. It’s completely unpatrolled by lifeguards and Professor Andy Short from Sydney University (and my PhD supervisor) rates it as the highest wave energy beach in Australia