April 2022 (ROTM#160) Bulli Beach, NSW, Australia

The east coast of New South Wales has had a horrible La Niña summer full of rain, rain, more rain, floods and more rain and floods. I have not been in the ocean for a bodysurf in over a month as the water is either too dirty or it’s too much of a mess…or both. This picture was taken back in early January on a rare sunny day that I wish I’d appreciated more at the time.

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. The lifeguards generally put the red and yellow flags up opposite one of the bars and you can see how narrow the flagged area is in this picture and that people are doing the right thing and keeping between the flags. That’s a good thing because not far beyond the flags is a prominent narrow (maybe 5 m wide?) dark channel rip heading offshore. You can also see another one further down the beach.

The conditions are great for playing around in the surf, as the waves aren’t too big, but it shows just how tricky it is for lifeguards to choose a safe area, and also how important it is to know how to spot a rip because if there were no flags there, where would you swim?