February 2023 (ROTM#170) Tamarama Beach, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Most of the Rip of the Month pictures use photographs taken from elevation looking down at the beach. While this is useful for pointing out what rips look like, they don’t necessarily help people spot rips when they are actually standing on the beach.

It's always harder to spot rips from the beach itself, but the same rules apply. You need to spend a few minutes looking at the surf and you’re looking for green gaps between areas of breaking waves and whitewater. That’s because most rips flow through deep channels and deeper water is always darker and has less waves breaking. At least channelised rips do.

I took this picture at Sydney’s Tamarama Beach, which is where my Science of the Surf talks and dye releases for the public started. If you look at the water in the picture, you can see a wide green gap in the middle of the beach. It was a large rip because the waves were quite big that day and if you look closely you can see that the lifeguards have put a ‘dangerous current/no swimming sign’ in front of it. The beach was closed for swimming due to the conditions so there were no red and yellow flags up. It was also very windy, which is why not many people were on the beach.

It's a good idea when you visit a beach to first try and gain some elevation to look for rips. This could be from a headland, the top of a sand dune, or even a parking lot, which is often a bit higher than the beach (if it’s situated next to the beach). The back of the beach is also a little higher. It also helps to wear polarised sunglasses, which cut out the glare and help you see the dark gaps in the whitewater that could be rips.

That’s a big green gap. Big rip.