May 2009 (ROTM #5) Dixon Park Beach, Newcastle, NSW Australia

Newcastle is one of Australia's best kept secrets. It's a 2 hour drive north of Sydney and is the second biggest city in NSW, but unless you actually have a reason to go there, you'll just drive straight by on the Pacific Highway without even getting a glimpse. This is a shame because it has some great coastline and beaches and is a pretty nice place to live as well. Dixon Park is in the middle of an approximately 2 km long beach that is called Merewether at its southern end.

Home, and home break, of one of Australia's surfing legends Mark Richards, Merewether has now been designated a National Surfing Reserve. None of this has anything to do with rips, but for years now I've been giving my Science of the Surf talks at the Dixon Park Surf Life Saving Club because there's often a rip straight out in front. This one is a classic because it clearly shows how "fixed" or "low-energy" rips can be identified by seemingly "calm gaps" between the breaking waves. This one had a longshore feeder flowing from right to left that then angled off into the main rip channel. It wasn't flowing particularly fast because the waves were fairly small and the channel was wide. Rips need a LOT of wave breaking and narrow channels to flow fast.

The most dangerous aspect of this rip is that it looks like the safest place to swim...and it's not. You can always tell it's Newcastle from the ships offshore...one could very well be the Pasha Bulker, which came ashore in a major East Coast Cyclone in June 2007!

The rip highway. White is nice, green is mean.