The lifeguard couldn’t spot the rip, can you?
Wombarra Beach is in the Northern Illawarra and features a lot in my Rips of the Month as it’s only 5 minutes away, has become my favourite bodysurfing beach and almost always has rips. This one is a bit tricky to spot to be honest. But I jumped in it and it quickly took me quite a fair way offshore.
You can see one red and yellow flag put up by the Council Lifeguard and the other one is out of picture to the right (remember the system in Australia is to swim between the red and yellow flags). That lifeguard knew what they were doing because he was getting people (not that it was busy) to swim over the shallow sandbar where all the whitewater from the breaking waves is. The rip was actually channelised and starts where you see that person wading and heads offshore at an angle…you can see the deeper channel because the water is darker. What makes this tricky is the waves aren’t breaking over the sandbar to the left of the rip so you’re not seeing the classic green dark gap between areas of breaking waves. The lifeguard who started the day clearly knew there was a rip there because they placed their white rescue board right there!
I was at the beach doing some filming with a 360 camera as part of a project we’re doing involving using Virtual Reality headsets to test how people spot rips – you can see the tripod and camera set up. So I found it a little concerning that when I told the lifeguard what I was doing he said “Well, if you see any rips, let me know!”…..I think it must have been a different lifeguard then the one that started the day! And obviously he hadn’t noticed me jumping in the rip and floating offshore. Several times!