September 2024 (ROTM#189) Queenscliff Beach, Sydney, NSW Australia

The rip highway to the surf.

It’s funny how you come across rip current photos. The other morning a colleague of mine at UNSW was checking out the surf by having a look at some surf cams while on the train to work and sent me this as a screenshot – a fantastic channelised rip current at Queenscliff Beach at the northern end of Sydney’s Manly Beach. It’s that green highway heading out through the surf zone. It shows just how wide rips can be – this one is about 10-15 metres wide and that rips don’t always flow straight offshore, this one is doing a nice meander. That’s why the advice ‘swim parallel’ to the beach to escape a rip can sometimes be problematic!

The surf cam was operated by Swellnet and I contacted them to see if I could use the footage as part of a research study on how to identify rip currents. They were more than happy to share the footage and as it turns out, we’ll be using Swellnet surf cams to get more imagery of rips. Thanks to David Edwards my colleague for sending the image to me in the first place!