June 2026 (ROTM#210) Woolamai Beach, Victoria, Australia
Which sign is more effective?
The main reason I was invited to Phillip Island was to give my community beach safety talk at the Woolamai Surf Life Saving Club. It was packed and Bass Coast Shire Council did an incredible job organising the event with multiple speakers and a panel discussion. I have done this for a long, long time and honestly, it was one of the best events I’ve ever been involved with. The audience was really into it as well!
The only time I had previously been to Woolamai was back in 2002 and I remember thinking the rip currents were the biggest I had ever seen. So big in fact that I couldn’t take a picture that fit one of them in. Things were no different this time. The beach has big waves and big rips…and lots of them. It is right up there with Muriwai Beach in New Zealand as one of the most dangerous beaches I’ve ever seen. Swimming is definitely not recommended although based on what I saw, the lifesavers at the Club are incredibly competent. We did some dye releases in the rips and I brought a ton of dye and used more dye than I ever did before and still it wasn’t enough. You can watch a bit of the dye release in this video created by the Council to summarise the event.
So where’s the rip in this picture? Well it’s the small green area where there are no breaking waves behind the person walking along the beach. I’ll show a much better perspective of the rip next month. But I wanted to focus on the ‘Danger’ sign. After the terrible drownings at Forrest Caves Beach that I described last month, the Council worked with Life Saving Victoria and multi-cultural communities to test out new signage designs to see which one people responded to the most. Based on their research they came up with the ‘Drowning’ man concept with the skull and crossbones. It’s certainly eye-catching compared to the standard signage next to it. More research is underway to see if this new sign is having an impact on beach visitors. I certainly hope so.