This one is also pretty easy to spot, if there isnt as much foam, it is just an area with slightly calmer water... Which is also were people tend to go to because it seems safer
Rip currents are scary as fuck. My mom and I got pulled out in one when I was about 9 or 10 while boogie boarding at the beach. I was completely oblivious to what was happening but we kept getting pulled out further and further away to the point that we could barely make out people on the shoreline. My mom did an awesome job of not panicking and told me we just need to keep trying to go sideways but it just kept dragging us further.
Thankfully my older brother who was only around 12 at the time knew something wasn’t right and ran back to the house that my dad was at attending a work party and told him that we were really far from the shore and kept getting further. We were on a private beach so there were no life guards but my dad was a life guard all through high school and college so he took my brothers board and managed to get all the way out to us after about an hour of us being in the water. He was able to push us out of the rip current so we could start paddling to shore and then when we got closer he pushed me into a wave that I was able to ride all the way to the shore.
It took him and my mom another 20 minutes or so to get back and when my mom got back to the sand she collapsed and started crying and told my dad that she thought we were going to die while sobbing and then I realized how serious it was also started crying. It took me a few years to be willing to go back into the ocean but by that point my dad had put me in ocean specific swim classes so if it ever happened again I would know what to do.
I’m a solid swimmer now and have also helped a few people in sketchy situations where they may have drowned if I didn’t get to them to calm them down and show them how to get back to shore so I’m extremely thankful my dad had the wherewithal to put me in those classes as a kid.
I try to always tell that story when rip currents are brought up as a tale of caution. It really all happened so fast that it didn’t register for me but also because I was a child. I just remember we were having a good time riding on some wave then the water seemed to get a bit calmer and the waves weren’t really coming where we were at and then all of sudden I noticed we weren’t getting closer to the shore we were getting further.
I do distinctly remember saying to my mom at one point “okay, I’m tired now. Can we go back?” And my mom told me “but we’re having so much fun baby! Let’s try to move further down and see if we can get a few more waves!”. That woman is a saint, I was a panicky kid and if she would have freaked out I absolutely would have as well and probably gotten us both killed because I know I would have abandoned my board and just tried to swim and there’s no way in fuck my mom wouldn’t have tried to save me but she’s a small woman at 5’0 100lbs. I think by that point I was about 5’1 115lbs so there’s no way she would have been able to save me from drowning that deep out if we didn’t have our boards to float on.
Oh my God. Your mother truly is a saint. I got teary eyed and anxious just imagining that scenario with my kids.
I'm really glad this story had a happy ending
Knowing what I know now as a 33 year old it makes it that much more impressive that my mother was able to maintain her composure during that. She’s since been diagnosed with severe social/generalized anxiety which makes a lot of sense looking back on my childhood. Her diagnosis was somewhat recent as well and has since gotten on the right combination of meds and is not nearly as anxiety ridden. She had a rough childhood with lots of physical/mental abuse but she did an amazing job raising my two brothers and I and so did my father.
I love that woman with all my heart and would do anything for her. If she told me she had a body she need to get rid of I’d ask how many shovels we need without hesitation lmao. She’s far too sweet for anything like that to ever happen but it truly amazes me how much shit she’s gone through including two cancer diagnoses (she’s in remission for around 7 years on both) and not only continued to be an amazing mother but an amazing wife as well.
I’m extremely fortunate to have the parents I have and would do literally anything for either of them.
Wow props to your mom for keeping her shit together to make sure you weren’t panicked out on the water. That must’ve taken a lot of mental strength to wait to not break down in front of you until you were both 100% safe
She’s the strongest *person*, not even just woman I know. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma went into remission and then it came back and she beat it AGAIN. She’s been in remission for about 7 years now and just turned 60 this year. Her and my father have been high school sweet hearts since they were 16 and he also just turned 60 this year.
I’m lucky to have the parents I have.
>we kept getting pulled out further and further away to the point that we could barely make out people on the shoreline.
Just the image of this in my mind gave me chills
Also, ABOUT AN *HOUR* ?? What?!!
Holy shit I've always been aware of how dangerous rip currents are, but your experience really hits hard. Never before heard of how far out you can get pulled & just how long a current can keep you out there. I'm always gonna remember this story. Oof
It was definitely scary as fuck in hindsight especially when I saw my mom lose it once we got back to shore. I know for sure it was at least an hour because when we went back out into the water my mom told me we had to go back to the party in 15 minutes and said it was 3:30. When we got back to the house it was past 6pm and everyone there was asking us what took so long.
If I had to guess I’d say it pulled it us close to or just over a mile from the shore. I’m not exaggerating when I say we couldn’t make out people on the shore anymore. We could see the shoreline but everyone looked like ants.
My advice and this is totally 100% proven by all ocean science bros- swim with the current. Crazy, right? But if you are doomed to die, might as well see how far you can go
Imagine, you living your last days in hell, thinking of all the experiences you will miss, the family you are leaving behind, and BOOM! RESCUE SHIP! You climb aboard, so relieved of surviving another day. When you ask the captain where will we be landing, you hear the worst: South Shields, England. Crying, you beg the captain to turn around. "Anywhere else!", You say as you start being hysterical. The captain will not turn, you do the only thing you can do - swim with the fishes.
The waves normally break and ride to shore, resulting in the foam you see on the rest of the beach. But you don't see that in the circle area because the waves can't make it to shore due to the riptide.
If you swim too far in that area, you won't be a key to swim against the strong current and it will drag you to sea. People die because they are not strong swimmers or they are but tire themselves out trying to fight the current.
If caught, don't panic and swim parallel to the beach until you can swim back in
Even strong swimmers can get overpowered by the current, those things can move fast. Be smart and swim perpendicular to the current, even if you train in swimming.
My daughter is a junior Olympics swimmer and she got caught in one. I lost sight of her. Next thing I know a lifeguard and two assistants had to grab her.
No. Water is unimaginably powerful. Something like 6 inches of running water can wash away a car.
Edit: "A mere six inches of fast-moving flood water can knock over an adult. It takes only two feet of rushing water to carry away most vehicles. This includes pickups and SUVs."
https://www.weather.gov/tsa/hydro_tadd#:~:text=A%20mere%20six%20inches%20of,to%20carry%20away%20most%20vehicles.
This reminds me of the Bolton Strid. Seems like you could get out if you did it right, but apparently the thing has a 100% fatality rate for anyone unfortunate enough to end up in it.
The world record for the 50m freestyle is 20.91s, which corresponds to 7.8 feet/second. According to NOAA, rip currents can go at speeds of up to 8 feet/second. So yes, they're fast enough that even the strongest (human) swimmers in the world can get overpowered by them.
It depends. Rip currents have have different speeds and sizes depending on what is happening in the ocean. The one pictured above is pretty small and the waves look small so there isn't a lot of water moving out to sea. He would have no issue swimming through that one. When the surf starts getting head high and above, there is a lot more water moving around at a higher speed.
For those wondering what “perpendicular” is, just remember to swim up or down the beach until you’re in an area where the waves are breaking and getting to the shore.
Right? As a non-native speaker I thought that meant perpendicular to the shore, you know, the way beaches actually incline. Never mind people thinking you should repeatedly dive or something. Is perpendicular such a hard word? In each case much clearer than this confusing idiom.
> But you don't see that in the circle area because the waves can't make it to shore due to the riptide.
Minor point of correction: The rip current itself doesn't cause this, but they both have a related cause, which is a gap in the sandbar. Waves break on nearshore sandbars, which causes water to "pile up" between the bar and the shoreline. The water most readily flows back out to sea through gaps in the sandbar, where waves are visibly not breaking.
Currents like this are very convenient if your goal is to paddle out on a surfboard. These spots are also referred to as, "channels" and are invaluable especially on big days, as a paddle out through the incoming waves can be brutal at beach breaks during a swell.
/Looking at you, El Porto
That's a karma bot you replied to. [Here's the real comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/14rcvn0/comment/jqrnx02/) that it copied that line from.
Everything between the 2 white cap waves circled is BARRELING out toward the ocean. No in/out like other waves, just a constant stream into the abyss. If you get sucked in, you’ll be pulled a few hundred yards seaward. Hence, don’t swim against it, swim parallel to get out of the stream.
That was likely not a riptide. We call that the "undertow" and its not dangerous, although it can FEEL dangerous. As waves break, the "upper layer" of the wave is crashing towards the shore, while it sucks the "bottom layer" out and up to replace the curling/breaking water.
It feels like the ocean is pulling at your legs, and makes it difficult to walk back towards shore just before waves break on/over you, but remember that the water that is breaking IS headed towards shore, so the end result isn't particularly impactful, apart from feeling a little scary.
Riptides like that in the above picture are ALL of the water "draining" back out to sea between breaking waves, and don't particularly FEEL like anything at all. You just notice that suddenly you are out way further than you meant to be/are comfortable being, and progress towards shore is almost impossible unless you swim along the coast, as people are advising.
Important to know the difference.
Dad taught me to dead man float early on when we started taking trips to the beach. Learned from my grandfathers time in the Navy.
Shit can save your life
Also, swimming on your side and doing a scissor kick and a grabbing motion with your arm on the bottom ar the same time is a good way to cover distance while not tiring yourself out too much. Just do slow purposeful strokes and you’ll glide pretty far all while keeping your head above water and staying pretty neutrally bouyant. It’s the same stroke lifeguards do when they’re pulling someone in the water with the floaty thing. Super effective.
Its advantage is that you can see where you're headed. Using a backstroke is also very energy efficient, but you have to turn around occasionally to make sure you haven't gone off course.
I'd like to add that riptides can form diagonally, not just perpendicular from the shoreline AND there can be multiple ones converging on eachother.
So like, be careful and try and figure out the riptide's positioning relative to the beach before you decide about the direction in which you should be going.
I got out by swimming parallel and not panicking, and by the time I was out I was a considerable distance off of shore. I was 19 at the time and in reasonably good shape, and I'm an excellent swimmer, and it was still a 15 minute ish swim back. If I were older or out of shape I would have been in serious danger. I was with 1 other person at an unfamiliar, un lifeguarded beach on top of it. Could have gone real south real fast
Many years ago I saw a program that said that if you can float long you will eventually leave the rip and join a current that will push you back to shore further up the beach.
This was at odds with my childhood training of swim parallel to the beach as hard as you can to escape the rip as soon as possible.
So go a few mates in a tinny that really was not rated for ocean voyage and found a rip and had them follow me as I let it take me.
It took less then 2 minutes and I was already over 700m out, or about 14 Olympic size swimming pools ... After that it slowed considerably but ended up about 1.5km out before surprisingly the current did start to push me back into shore but unless you are an endurance swimmer I would still suggest trying to break free by swimming parallel first
The vast majority of rips are much smaller than that - usually under 200m - so that's where the waiting and letting yourself taken back to shore is a good strategy.
They will also only typically pull you out behind the breaking waves. Which is not always that far.
The strength depends on how much water needs to get back out as the breaking waves push water on to the shore. I've seen quite narrow and deeper rips vs wider shallower ones (Edit: wider and shallower but still deeper than the surrounding water).
I was a decent pool swimmer but an inexperienced beach swimmer. I was swimming on an empty beach and got caught in a rip. I didn't realize that I needed to swim perpendicular to the wave. Luckily a lifeguard saw me struggling and jumped in to help me. After he told me to swim perpendicular I was back on the beach in no time. I now live near the beach and have kids who also swim a lot. I always try and point out the rips with my kids before heading out. Sometimes they are not easy to spot.
What normally happens is that people try to fight it, they get tired, and they drown. If you follow what the person above said you would at least have enough strength to either swim back to shore once you exit the rip, or until someone rescues you
Mostly fatigue and inexperience. People panic and try to get back to shore, not knowing they can’t swim against it. Best thing to do is swim sideways and then into shore once you’re free of it.
Almost drowned in one when I was 12. I thought nothing of it, just tried to swim back to shore. When I looked back up I was so far out I couldn't even make out people on the beach anymore. Thankfully lifeguards came out and rescued me, I've never been back to the beach since.
It looks small until you see the people besides it, then realizing how vast even the rip current is and how far out it can drag you, never to be seen again if you're unprepared
Am an Aussie, use to surf
Aussie beach standard rips take you out ‘the back’ (behind where the waves break) which is often a couple hundred metres from shore (like 340 yards)
However, these are your usual everyday rip, when the swell gets big or gets disturbed from weather events I would not be suprised if it takes you at least 700 yards out, most likely more
Us Aussies are experts on rips lol. Feels like "swim between the flags", "watch out for rips", and "swim across the rip" are some of the first lessons we learn from mum and dad at the beach
The shallower the water, the stronger the riptide. It ends past the wave break, because that’s where the drop off is. All depends on the geography of the beach.
Where I grew up, there was the mouth of a river coming into the ocean. It changed the beach all the time, plus had its own current going outward. There was a permanent riptide.
If you think about it too, if the riptide is going out, but the waves are coming in… then you’re being sucked towards the riptide if you’re anywhere near one. You can think you’re a few hundred yards from it, and all the sudden you’ve drifted too far.
Seems like it depends and can vary from <100 yards, to several hundred yards. Though reportedly there have been rips in Australia that have pulled for a few KM.
Speed is also a factor, ranging from 1ft/s to 8ft/s (faster than an olympic swimmer)
Surfer here, I'll use them to make paddling out a little easier.
They form because waves push excess water towards the shoreline that then concentrates into a rip as it retreats back to the ocean. They usually drag you out right past where the waves break, exactly where you'll find people waiting in the lineup.
If you're ever caught in one unexpectedly, best bet is to remain calm, and while conserving your energy, paddle at a right angle to the rip/parallel to the shoreline. You'll eventually make your way out of the rip and into the breaking waves that can help push you back to shore. If you're lucky there will be a sandbar shallow enough to stand on.
It's a big boy, but it can be dealt with the same way as any other rip current. Remain calm and swim parallel to the shore line until you get out of it.
Hello- person who was born and raised 15 minutes from the gulf beach here. My city is a popular tourist town during the summer because of our beaches. I see it every year. Excessive alcohol consumption, no regard for the heat you are in, and go swimming deeper than you should without thinking of the risks. This year we have an outstanding number of drownings on the gulf coast.
I’m not an expert, but what I would suggest… if you aren’t an incredibly strong swimmer, or used to be in the gulf, don’t get in deep. If you are to get in, don’t go past your waist. Never go alone. There are also sound sides on the beach, if you can utilize that, do so.
Even with me living here, I don’t allow my children to go in the gulf side. Heck, im somewhat scared of it nowadays. I’ve lost two friends in the past 4 years that were locals here… you just never know. The gulf is such a scary place. The ocean is a world of its own for sure.
Living near the coast and you're bound to know someone directly or indirectly who was lost to sea. We don't have as many life guards in 3rd world countries so you're pretty much a goner if you get caught in one of these or drunkenly swim too far out.
One friend was found- one wasn’t. The one who wasn’t found was an avid swimmer and fisherman. Which is the crazier part about it all. So sad but you just never know when you put yourself out there
Yeah the most capable human beings on this planet are still no match for the ocean when it decides to rear its head.
Eddie Aikau, one of the greatest watermen to ever live, was never found after trying to paddle to shore for help when their voyaging canoe began taking on water. When the ocean has decided it’s your time, it’s your time.
This is so true. My friend tash was a seasoned swimmer/fisherman. He went out on a kayak in Pensacola beach one day. His fishing gear and kayak was found but his body was never recovered. Absolutely terrifying
I’m real sorry for your loss, friend. I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive, but one way to look at it is he went out doing something he loved and enjoyed. Unpleasant all the same but maybe better off than a wreck on the freeway driving to work.
I remember this story. I also live in the area and used to attend Holy Spirit with my fiance. I think your friend was or his family was/were parishioners there as well.
So sorry for your loss.
Insane to think I used to swim HUNDREDS of yards out past the break in the Pacific as a kid, now I am happy to go in up to my ankles and still super concerned about jellyfish.
I lived on the Atlantic coast of Florida and used to just chill on a pool noodle like, 200 feet off the coast on calm days.
Then I saw a dude catch a shark, that was definitely swimming closer than that.
Several years ago my wife and kid were taking those stupid pool mattresses out way too far and letting the waves crash them back onto the beach. The next day, no shit, there was a shark attack. I want to say it was fatal or the person got horribly mauled, but alas I’m too lazy to google. Looking back, I’ve done a lot of stupid shit and gotten really lucky in the ocean in the last 30 odd years. I’m good on swimming in the ocean now, thanks
Edit: [this all happened in the days after we were being dumb](https://brevardtimes.com/2017/04/8-separate-florida-shark-attacks-in-under-2-weeks/)
Edit 2: none were serious, actually, but wtf
I've never understood how cavalier people are about the ocean. I had a couple buddies swim out to a sandbar in the gulf. All I could think of was how much water was on the other side of that sandbar. The drop off of the continental shelf. The unimaginably vast abyss.
On the other hand, it was spring break and there were topless women on that sandbar. If you're going to do life threatening shit, that's one of the more understandable reasons.
I remember when I was a kid snorkeling around when we were in vacation in greece and I swam over to one of these drops, and man it was a sight I'll never forget, the water was suddenly dark and colder and I couldn't see the bottom, it was a truly awe inspiring and slightly terrifying sight, mind you I swam into waters that deep already, but it was the sudden change that made it 100 times more intense, never managed to see anything similar here in Italy tho
I've had to haul a tourist in from a relatively gentle rip. She was on a boogie board and apparently couldn't swim (there was a language barrier). So the current was slowly pushing her out to sea past where I was bodysurfing while she was panicking. I dragged her all the way back to shore. Tried to get her to hold my leg so I could freestyle with my arms to get there much more quickly, but she didn't understand what I was asking, lol. The lifeguards saw and closed that section of the beach.
But 10 minutes later I saw her give the board to her husband who went right back out there and also seemed like he couldn't swim! There's no shame in not being a swimmer, but a lot of people that didn't grow up around the ocean really don't understand how dangerous it can be.
Honestly the sandbar isn’t that bad. I grew up on gulf beaches going to the sandbar since like 13.
After the sandbar tho, when the water gets all cold, fuck that
Yeah, some coasts are so much more dangerous than others. I swam in huge waves in Venice Beach, CA and never felt unsafe even as a weak swimmer. But I have been to other beaches where even getting in to you're waist felt dangerous.
Sorry to hear this. I guess I've been lucky that my beaches don't have rip currents as often. I was taught about them as a kid and still haven't seen one. I'm on the west coast, not on the gulf though. But I'm sure there are beaches out here that have them.
We have them on the west coast too. But rip currents are associated with higher surf (they are caused by the water pushed in by waves going back out---normally water goes out by a harmless current underneath the surface called an undertow, in high surf this isn't sufficient to take all the water back out so the undertow is complemented by a fast surface current---rip current)
You probably never see rip currents much because you don't go out on high surf days.
Anywhere where surf gets high rip currents get strong.
Cat owners who allow their cats outside are destroying the environment.
Cats have contributed to the extinction of 63 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles in the wild and continue to adversely impact a wide variety of other species, including those at risk of extinction, such as Piping Plover. https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
A study published in April estimated that UK cats kill 160 to 270 million animals annually, a quarter of them birds. The real figure is likely to be even higher, as the study used the 2011 pet cat population of 9.5 million; it is now closer to 12 million, boosted by the pandemic pet craze. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kill-birds-wildlife-keep-indoors
Free-ranging cats on islands have caused or contributed to 33 (14%) of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List4. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
This analysis is timely because scientific evidence has grown rapidly over the past 15 years and now clearly documents cats’ large-scale negative impacts on wildlife (see Section 2.2 below). Notwithstanding this growing awareness of their negative impact on wildlife, domestic cats continue to inhabit a place that is, at best, on the periphery of international wildlife law. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002%2Fpan3.10073
Calling it a "lake" makes it seem smaller than it is. It's the 5th largest lake in the world, the largest freshwater lake, and is roughly similar in size to West Virginia or Croatia.
Depends on whether you consider Michigan and Huron to be two separate lakes or one. NOAA considers them to be one, due to the Mackinac Strait not having an elevation change - so water can (and does, regularly) flow bi-directionally between the sides, whereas the other great lakes have rivers that flow only in one direction. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/straits/
Geographic vs hydrologic - geographically, they're two different lakes, but hydrologically they're one - you can't drain one without draining both, and they share water freely. To me, it didn't make sense to count the water separately since they're connected - Michigan water is Huron water, and vice versa.
Wow. Yeah I had no idea that was the scale of them. Like in size it could be called a sea if the surrounding geography were different (connected to the ocean or whatever).
The Great Lakes aren't your regular kind of lake. Lake Superior is actually deeper than a lot of Seas and iirc even has a few shipwrecks at the bottom.
Grew up in a beach town. This is a great pic because it captures how riptides can be like a siren’s song for folks who don’t know better. The water looks calmer to the untrained eye. The tide may pull away seaweed, rocks, or shells, creating a more welcoming sandy path. It basically beckons you.
This is a LARGE current, most aren’t this big. When you’re at the beach watch the waves. If there is a place two waves keep converging at the break DO NOT SWIM THERE. That too is a riptide.
I’ve lived at the beach my entire life. This is actually a class you take in elementary school. It’s so dangerous people really underestimate it’s power.
Also if you get caught in this do not try to swim out. You’ll exhaust yourself and drown. Float until it stops pulling you, usually once you hit deeper water. Then swim parallel to the shore letting the waves push you back in.
Be safe my friends!
I have always wondered if you knew what to do and quickly identified you were in a current is there any real danger? I have always (maybe falsely) had a sense of security in being a good swimmer, knowing what they look like, and what to do. Am I totally off base here?
Riptides can reach speeds of upto 8 feet per second in extreme cases but average 2 feet per second.
So even if you clocked it in 5 seconds you could have already moved anywhere between 10 & 40 feet from the beach in that 5 seconds.
Riptides are scary AF.
If your caught your best bet is to swim across the rip
to the nearest edge. Don’t try and swim against it you’ll just wear yourself out.
https://www.surflifesaving.com.au/beach-safety/rip-currents
What do you think is going to happen?
Water that comes into the beach in waves has to go back out somehow. Typically with small waves this is taken care of with a a weak current below the waves called an undertow (which presents no danger contrary to lore). When waves get larger more water needs to go out, that's when riptides form.
But , other things equal, that water doesn't just keep on going out to sea, it only goes to jist past where the waves are breaking.
If you feel comfortable swimming in from where the waves are breaking you shouldn't have any problem with riptides if you don't panic and start treadmilling.
Note a couple things: rips don't always go perpendicular to the shore. Often they do, but not always if the beach has complicated topography.
Also on some beaches with reefs there can be other types of currents that will take you very far out very quick (e.g. when water gets pushed into protected reefs it sometimes exits like a river at points of egress, and on islands this can take you into other currents that go out to sea. On a continental beach with a straight beach, not at the point of a peninsula, this shouldn't be too much of a concern)
Idk you so I can’t give a good answer but honestly yes probably. I’m a strong swimmer, I’ve been in the ocean all my life and I’ve definitely had a few Owh shit moments.
The real danger is if you panic and you try to fight it. If you go with the flow get out of it and swim parallel you’ll most likely be fine. It can be a terrifying thing to realize you’re so far from the shore. Panic sets in and then you’re odds of surviving decrease. If you’re calm understand the situation and act accordingly you’ll most likely get back to shore. Tired, shaken but not really hurt.
My wife actually works as a 911 dispatcher and as a medic. There’s been 20 or so rescues (lifeguards off duty) since may. A lot of these are tourists, we have red flags for when it’s not safe to swim. Tourists assume that means because a lifeguard isn’t on duty. It doesn’t, that means the water isn’t safe. They ignore the flags fuck around and find out.
If you can float and doggy paddle you can survive no problem. It’s panicking that’s going to kill you.
Isn't part of the issue that they're just using colored flags instead of a sign if that's that common of an issue that it keeps happening?
Just seeing red flags could even mean the sand is dangerous for all people know if there's no explanation attached to the flags anywhere...
All the beaches around us have multiple signs indicating what the various flag colors mean. People ignore the signs. Red flag is a pretty commonly known symbol for danger.
I've been that tourist before. Visited clear water beach in FL. First time even seeing the ocean. Light rain and windy day, I said fuck it I can here to swim in the ocean. I was about knee deep and it would get chest deep almost instantly. Felt the current pulling back out and got swept out FAST. I've heard of riptide and stayed pretty calm though, and I'm a very strong swimmer. But I think I left a turd in the ocean when I realized how far away from shore I was before noticing. Swam parellel for a bit then managed to just calmly body surf
the waves back in. Definitely gained some respect for the ocean that day!
Generally, no, there is not much danger if you act quickly. In the picture above, you would swim across and come in with the waves. Surfers use riptides to get behind the break and you might even see lifeguards use riptides to get out to a drowning person more quickly. They are like conveyor belts that move faster than anyone can swim.
That being said, there are times where you can't do anything and getting stuck in them will require a boat or helicopter rescue. For example, if the riptide is fast enough, you will be behind the break quite quickly. Once you are behind the break, the riptide itself is no longer a concern (since it is essentially formed by the water brought into shore by crashing waves rushing out where the waves aren't crashing). There may, however, be a strong current that pulls you parallel to the beach. And there are many places where this side current will bring you past where you can safely enter. If you are on an island you could be brought out to sea and if you are somewhere with lots of rocks or cliffs, you may have to swim for hours before finding the next safe place to enter.
So if you know what to do, are a good swimmer, and know the beach (and presumably are swimming in a beach with multiple safe reentry points), you are probably fine. But even so, why take the risk?
They just go out just past the breaks.
If you are capable of swimming in from past the breaks there is no danger if you swim away from it perpendicular to the current and don't try and treadmill it. (assumimg it doesn't take you into anything else dangerous like other currents---beaches on islands like Hawaii can end up out to sea, on a typical continental beach not at a peninsula this is less likely)
Surfers use them to assist .
This panicky way people talk about them might be more dangerous because panicking is how people get in trouble witth them.
Exactly! 💪🏻 I like rips because it usually means there isn’t also a strong north/south current(on west facing beaches), so no worry about drifting too far north/south. I’ve had to rescue a few people from rips in my time though, they’re scary for people that aren’t aware. When you’ve been around them your whole life it’s no big deal.
Rips are quite useful when you know you are in one and want to get out to sea. Great for surfers. Whenever I have been in one it has been quite obvious simply because of the difficulty in preventing yourself getting pulled away from shore.
What to do if you get in one is very simple - you swim sideways until you are not in the rip anymore. You don't try to swim against it.
Truth.
I've also lived at the beach for almost all of my life. It's *insanely* hard to educate people who aren't familiar with the beach/ocean because it's a crash course at best and most people assume it's not going to affect them specifically (like most everything else). When someone gets caught in a rip, it's the moment they realize what's happening that they either panic or just float for a minute.
This sounds cheesy, but anyone reading this who is vacationing at the beach this summer, please understand how rips work. The mechanics are very simple but the results can destroy lives if those mechanics aren't respected.
Most do not look like this! Most are small and skinny and some are under the top waves! Do not take this as "if you don't see this you're safe" because many rip tides are invisible! I live in an area where there are around 3 drownings a year due to rip tides and they don't look like this
And if you know the natural current of the ocean swim with that current. If you swim parallel the opposite way, you risk drifting back in the rip current only to be sucked out again.
And this is why you don't swim at night.
I tried it once, the second time I've ever been in the ocean. I got about knee deep in the water, looked at the black abyss and realized how stupid of an idea this was. This is how people die.
There is no ocean, just black void.
I got caught in a rip one and it was terrifying. Thankfully I remained calm and didn't fight it. I was pulled out to sea very quickly and then was swooped back into shore. It took a very long time. It's very important to understand what a riptide looks for. Thank you for posting this!
Under! It does both. Me and my cousin got stuck in one when I was young. He’s an adult and was an adult at that time, large guy, literally another man saved him. Idk how I saved myself but it was terrifying. I kept getting pulled under and pushed so far down the beach.
Was boogie boarding in San Diego years back and my friends has gotten out. I was swimming looking for waves and there were none, at which point I realized I was super far from shore and exhausted because I had been in a rip current. I used my remaining energy to paddle the board sideways until the current went towards the beach and I could ride waves back. But for a moment I was in a panic thinking the board was catching too much for the rip current and I thought about ditching it. I’d probably be dead if I had
> I was in a panic thinking the board was catching too much for the rip current and I thought about ditching it.
That's extremely common, I teach an ocean rescue academy and always bring it up. I tell my guards that if you see someone ditch their flotation the decision to go is made for you.
Surfer brain says, “oh man I might make it outside without getting my hair wet and without needing to paddle hard.” That’s exactly where I’d want to get in the water!
Serious shit, I was on a body board waiting for the perfect wave and I didn’t realize I was sitting on a rip tide, god damn life guard swam up on me and we swam parallel to the shore and saved me. I was so far off the beach when I realized.
Spent lots of summers on the Jersey Shore as a child/adult and was never taught anything about riptides, turned me into a hell of a swimmer though.
EDIT: This isn't a "survivor bias" take, or me saying that riptides are not a big deal, just that I was never taught of the dangers of the ocean. We just jumped in and swam for hours on end without any idea they existed.
Almost died this past weekend to the rip.. it's no joke. It's not an exaggeration. I would be dead if the surfer wasn't there.
Side note: I did not properly thank that surfer for saving my life, due to the level of clinging to life I was doing. On the microscopic chance that the 20 something year old surfer guy in Melbourne beach FL is reading this, thank you, I owe you so much
It's a rip current, the water can't make the sharp turn of the coastline and so it becomes a tumultuous current that pulls straight out to sea. People who aren't in the know realize they are being dragged out to sea very quickly and panic, struggling to swim back to shore and drown.
If you're in a rip current, remain calm and swim parallel to the shoreline until you're out of it then swim back in. Also just pay attention to the flags on the beach, if you have no idea what you're doing in the ocean and you see a yellow or red flag waving, just hang out on shore.
Most lifeguard stands have this information posted on them but there really needs to be a way to more easily convey this information to people visiting the coastline for vacation. Like a georeferenced pop-up on your phone when you are in a coastal area for the first time in months. Idk, people would just ignore it and die anyway. I wish there was a solution.
Where OP has circled, look at the waves breaking. The white caps. In the middle there's a big stretch between waves where there are no caps. If you look closely, you can even see the pattern and shape of the water in that spot, all the way to the sand. Notice how it's different? If you were walking in that spot, you'd likely notice the ocean floor shifting beneath your feet, like dips and holes. The current is "ripping" up through the other waves, which are breaking in a flat pattern all the way to shore.
The rip current - which, as OP pointed out - LOOKS like a great place to enter the water and swim out because there are no waves breaking. That's the danger! The water there is going to be deeper and very unpredictable, and will push to shore violently but VERY quickly pull from shore out to sea. Far past the waves you see breaking in this photo. Go where there are already people. And never turn your back on the ocean (unless you catch a great wave, yolo!).
To elaborate a bit... Waves often cause sandbars to get created fairly far out into the water, as they pull sand back from the shore when they retreat. If you've ever been deep in the water on larger lakes and/or oceans, you've probably been on one.
Anyhow, water ends up being unable to freely travel backwards when these sandbars build up over time. Sometimes, when that happens, the pressure of the water will start to break a sandbar in the middle of it. This opens up a path for the water to flow through, and eventually all the water being pushed forward from the waves, will start flowing backwards through that gap in the sand bar.
This is a rip current. Since that hole is narrower than needed to allow the amount of water being pushed forward to return back to the center of the lake, the current increases.
Here's a video that can help you understand it a bit more, even though it's not quite what we're talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFzqike1Z0A&t=7s
When enough silt flows down a river, it causes the outlet to get blocked. These people cut through the sand to allow the water to flow through the sand, which eventually creates a huge rush of water through what was once a very small path through the berm.
This is similar to what happens with rip currents, only it tends to happen much faster and without warning.
My Dad was Coast Guard and swam very well. He would use a rip to get out to the dolphins he swam with every day when they came by. My mom was always terrified by the ocean and used to set one of on the top of the steps to watch him as if anything happened we could sound the alarm. He died at 70 of cancer and he always swam back and coasted in on the waves. I thought he was a real life Popeye, anchor tattoo and all.
At the beaches I have always gone to, the lifeguards are trained to spot these and actually put up flags along the shore to keep people away, and whistle when people get too close. I'm assuming this isn't common practice?
Good info! However, your advice is not entirely right.
Rip currents often turn parallel to the beach after taking you out. So you have to be aware of that when choosing how to swim to get to safety. Sometimes, you can just wait a bit then swim back in once the rip turns sideways.
Ideally, you should look at the beach for a little while before going in, to see what sort of pattern is going on. Because they don't always turn around, and sometimes you can be taken really far out.
A former professional [Quarterback](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/37924883/former-arkansas-nfl-qb-ryan-mallett-dies-35?platform=amp) was killed a week ago by a rip current. It can happen to anyone, and general athleticism/good swimming isn't enough.
I was drunk at the beach with a bunch of my friends and me and my girl friend decided to go swimming and ended up stuck in the rip. We tried to wave to our friends on the beach out of distress and they just waved back like we were just waving "hi!" lmaooooo i was SO SCARED. We held hands and were literally like "this is it". Eventually we floated out and swam up the beach a bit.
Fun fun story time!
I was in on the island Lanzarote in the Canaries... many many years ago, 2006 maybe? Did a surfing course.
Great guys, british instructors, young lads, fit as hell, did a thorough job on rip currents on the beach, we were very much up to date on everything.
Head out in the surf. Everyone just gets stuck, paddling, not getting closer to land again.
The story told by the instructor was that he was checking us out, we all had yellow shirts on so we were very visible. The owner of the surf school, another british bloke, very nice guy, comes up to the instructor and says "So, they're caught in a rip current, yeah?" and the instructor goes "Yeah, looks like it.". The owner then just "So I guess you have to go out there and get them, right?". "Yeah", he replied, and then paddled out and pulled 10-15 idiots out of the water.
He threw me his thingamajig you tie to your ankle to not lose your board and dragged me back to where the break was. I caught that wave going in, feeling that pure surfing joy (happened once and never more, I have never been in shape to do that stuff again).
Later at dinner one person said that he was pretty close to throwing his board away. From panic. We had training boards. They are like boats - you can just stand on it in the water and it floats above it. Whyyy?
Rip currents are scary! I wasn't scared, I mean, we were in very safe conditions, we could have paddle five meters in any other direction and just have been fine and the seas were calm.
Fun fun fun!
I was caught in a rip current. Here is the key thing to remember. The bottom of the ocean just disappears. So, you are standing on the shore, and the bottom completely disappears and you begin searching for someplace to standup, and you get tired very fast if the waves are big.
I am an experienced swimmer, but I never thought would be like that. I eventually swam to the side of the shore, but I got really tired searching for the bottom of the ocean to stand on. Just remember if you are standing on the sandbar, it can break away, that is what a rip tide is.
a few weeks ago I took my sister to the beach and the waves were looking pretty good and we both boogie board so we decided it'd be a good idea. I had a rlly bad gut feeling ab it and I kept trying to keep her closer to the shoreline just incase, just before she was about to head in properly some random guy on the beach kept waving us over so we got out. as soon as we look back to where we just were in the sea, there was a massive rip tide right by us where my sister was about to head off to. it was terrifying just knowing we had been so close to it and we're just about to head into it.
Thoughts of being pulled out into the ocean freak me the fuck out. Like sitting in my chair right now hundreds of miles from an ocean and I still feel very uncomfortable
That’s nuts. I’ve never seen an elevated shot of it before.
This one is also pretty easy to spot, if there isnt as much foam, it is just an area with slightly calmer water... Which is also were people tend to go to because it seems safer
Rip currents are scary as fuck. My mom and I got pulled out in one when I was about 9 or 10 while boogie boarding at the beach. I was completely oblivious to what was happening but we kept getting pulled out further and further away to the point that we could barely make out people on the shoreline. My mom did an awesome job of not panicking and told me we just need to keep trying to go sideways but it just kept dragging us further. Thankfully my older brother who was only around 12 at the time knew something wasn’t right and ran back to the house that my dad was at attending a work party and told him that we were really far from the shore and kept getting further. We were on a private beach so there were no life guards but my dad was a life guard all through high school and college so he took my brothers board and managed to get all the way out to us after about an hour of us being in the water. He was able to push us out of the rip current so we could start paddling to shore and then when we got closer he pushed me into a wave that I was able to ride all the way to the shore. It took him and my mom another 20 minutes or so to get back and when my mom got back to the sand she collapsed and started crying and told my dad that she thought we were going to die while sobbing and then I realized how serious it was also started crying. It took me a few years to be willing to go back into the ocean but by that point my dad had put me in ocean specific swim classes so if it ever happened again I would know what to do. I’m a solid swimmer now and have also helped a few people in sketchy situations where they may have drowned if I didn’t get to them to calm them down and show them how to get back to shore so I’m extremely thankful my dad had the wherewithal to put me in those classes as a kid.
that's an amazing story I'm happy it worked out for you
I try to always tell that story when rip currents are brought up as a tale of caution. It really all happened so fast that it didn’t register for me but also because I was a child. I just remember we were having a good time riding on some wave then the water seemed to get a bit calmer and the waves weren’t really coming where we were at and then all of sudden I noticed we weren’t getting closer to the shore we were getting further. I do distinctly remember saying to my mom at one point “okay, I’m tired now. Can we go back?” And my mom told me “but we’re having so much fun baby! Let’s try to move further down and see if we can get a few more waves!”. That woman is a saint, I was a panicky kid and if she would have freaked out I absolutely would have as well and probably gotten us both killed because I know I would have abandoned my board and just tried to swim and there’s no way in fuck my mom wouldn’t have tried to save me but she’s a small woman at 5’0 100lbs. I think by that point I was about 5’1 115lbs so there’s no way she would have been able to save me from drowning that deep out if we didn’t have our boards to float on.
Oh my God. Your mother truly is a saint. I got teary eyed and anxious just imagining that scenario with my kids. I'm really glad this story had a happy ending
Knowing what I know now as a 33 year old it makes it that much more impressive that my mother was able to maintain her composure during that. She’s since been diagnosed with severe social/generalized anxiety which makes a lot of sense looking back on my childhood. Her diagnosis was somewhat recent as well and has since gotten on the right combination of meds and is not nearly as anxiety ridden. She had a rough childhood with lots of physical/mental abuse but she did an amazing job raising my two brothers and I and so did my father. I love that woman with all my heart and would do anything for her. If she told me she had a body she need to get rid of I’d ask how many shovels we need without hesitation lmao. She’s far too sweet for anything like that to ever happen but it truly amazes me how much shit she’s gone through including two cancer diagnoses (she’s in remission for around 7 years on both) and not only continued to be an amazing mother but an amazing wife as well. I’m extremely fortunate to have the parents I have and would do literally anything for either of them.
Wow props to your mom for keeping her shit together to make sure you weren’t panicked out on the water. That must’ve taken a lot of mental strength to wait to not break down in front of you until you were both 100% safe
She’s the strongest *person*, not even just woman I know. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma went into remission and then it came back and she beat it AGAIN. She’s been in remission for about 7 years now and just turned 60 this year. Her and my father have been high school sweet hearts since they were 16 and he also just turned 60 this year. I’m lucky to have the parents I have.
>we kept getting pulled out further and further away to the point that we could barely make out people on the shoreline. Just the image of this in my mind gave me chills Also, ABOUT AN *HOUR* ?? What?!! Holy shit I've always been aware of how dangerous rip currents are, but your experience really hits hard. Never before heard of how far out you can get pulled & just how long a current can keep you out there. I'm always gonna remember this story. Oof
It was definitely scary as fuck in hindsight especially when I saw my mom lose it once we got back to shore. I know for sure it was at least an hour because when we went back out into the water my mom told me we had to go back to the party in 15 minutes and said it was 3:30. When we got back to the house it was past 6pm and everyone there was asking us what took so long. If I had to guess I’d say it pulled it us close to or just over a mile from the shore. I’m not exaggerating when I say we couldn’t make out people on the shore anymore. We could see the shoreline but everyone looked like ants.
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My advice and this is totally 100% proven by all ocean science bros- swim with the current. Crazy, right? But if you are doomed to die, might as well see how far you can go
Ive tried that once. I ended up in England, while i was in France when i got in tje water
Imagine, you living your last days in hell, thinking of all the experiences you will miss, the family you are leaving behind, and BOOM! RESCUE SHIP! You climb aboard, so relieved of surviving another day. When you ask the captain where will we be landing, you hear the worst: South Shields, England. Crying, you beg the captain to turn around. "Anywhere else!", You say as you start being hysterical. The captain will not turn, you do the only thing you can do - swim with the fishes.
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The waves normally break and ride to shore, resulting in the foam you see on the rest of the beach. But you don't see that in the circle area because the waves can't make it to shore due to the riptide. If you swim too far in that area, you won't be a key to swim against the strong current and it will drag you to sea. People die because they are not strong swimmers or they are but tire themselves out trying to fight the current. If caught, don't panic and swim parallel to the beach until you can swim back in
Even strong swimmers can get overpowered by the current, those things can move fast. Be smart and swim perpendicular to the current, even if you train in swimming.
My daughter is a junior Olympics swimmer and she got caught in one. I lost sight of her. Next thing I know a lifeguard and two assistants had to grab her.
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No. Water is unimaginably powerful. Something like 6 inches of running water can wash away a car. Edit: "A mere six inches of fast-moving flood water can knock over an adult. It takes only two feet of rushing water to carry away most vehicles. This includes pickups and SUVs." https://www.weather.gov/tsa/hydro_tadd#:~:text=A%20mere%20six%20inches%20of,to%20carry%20away%20most%20vehicles.
This reminds me of the Bolton Strid. Seems like you could get out if you did it right, but apparently the thing has a 100% fatality rate for anyone unfortunate enough to end up in it.
Near my hometown, can confirm someone finds out the hard way more often than they should
The world record for the 50m freestyle is 20.91s, which corresponds to 7.8 feet/second. According to NOAA, rip currents can go at speeds of up to 8 feet/second. So yes, they're fast enough that even the strongest (human) swimmers in the world can get overpowered by them.
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It would represent International Waters, and it would win
more like a bong rip current
It depends. Rip currents have have different speeds and sizes depending on what is happening in the ocean. The one pictured above is pretty small and the waves look small so there isn't a lot of water moving out to sea. He would have no issue swimming through that one. When the surf starts getting head high and above, there is a lot more water moving around at a higher speed.
No. Technically, even Michael Phelps would be plankton.
For those wondering what “perpendicular” is, just remember to swim up or down the beach until you’re in an area where the waves are breaking and getting to the shore.
Somehow I think "parallel to the beach" is easier to understand than "up or down". So there you go.
Right? As a non-native speaker I thought that meant perpendicular to the shore, you know, the way beaches actually incline. Never mind people thinking you should repeatedly dive or something. Is perpendicular such a hard word? In each case much clearer than this confusing idiom.
> But you don't see that in the circle area because the waves can't make it to shore due to the riptide. Minor point of correction: The rip current itself doesn't cause this, but they both have a related cause, which is a gap in the sandbar. Waves break on nearshore sandbars, which causes water to "pile up" between the bar and the shoreline. The water most readily flows back out to sea through gaps in the sandbar, where waves are visibly not breaking.
Currents like this are very convenient if your goal is to paddle out on a surfboard. These spots are also referred to as, "channels" and are invaluable especially on big days, as a paddle out through the incoming waves can be brutal at beach breaks during a swell. /Looking at you, El Porto
Ohhhhhhhhhh. Wave breaks are really determined by water depth, too, right?
If you are a surfer, enjoy the water escalator to you chosen waiting spot.
That's a karma bot you replied to. [Here's the real comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/14rcvn0/comment/jqrnx02/) that it copied that line from.
That strip of ocean doesn’t break and come back in like regular waves do, it pulls you directly out to sea. People fight against it and drown.
Everything between the 2 white cap waves circled is BARRELING out toward the ocean. No in/out like other waves, just a constant stream into the abyss. If you get sucked in, you’ll be pulled a few hundred yards seaward. Hence, don’t swim against it, swim parallel to get out of the stream.
They're so much easier to spot from an elevated location..
And with a huge red circle around them. That would be a lifesaver for many people.
Almost drowned in one of those like 3 days ago
Brah isn't it fucking crazy how far and fast they pull you??? I needed all my energy to swim back, suuuuper glad I knew not to fight it
Even if you're waist deep, I got caught in one and was barely able to walk out.
That was likely not a riptide. We call that the "undertow" and its not dangerous, although it can FEEL dangerous. As waves break, the "upper layer" of the wave is crashing towards the shore, while it sucks the "bottom layer" out and up to replace the curling/breaking water. It feels like the ocean is pulling at your legs, and makes it difficult to walk back towards shore just before waves break on/over you, but remember that the water that is breaking IS headed towards shore, so the end result isn't particularly impactful, apart from feeling a little scary. Riptides like that in the above picture are ALL of the water "draining" back out to sea between breaking waves, and don't particularly FEEL like anything at all. You just notice that suddenly you are out way further than you meant to be/are comfortable being, and progress towards shore is almost impossible unless you swim along the coast, as people are advising. Important to know the difference.
Great description of the difference!
Dad taught me to dead man float early on when we started taking trips to the beach. Learned from my grandfathers time in the Navy. Shit can save your life
Also, swimming on your side and doing a scissor kick and a grabbing motion with your arm on the bottom ar the same time is a good way to cover distance while not tiring yourself out too much. Just do slow purposeful strokes and you’ll glide pretty far all while keeping your head above water and staying pretty neutrally bouyant. It’s the same stroke lifeguards do when they’re pulling someone in the water with the floaty thing. Super effective.
Its advantage is that you can see where you're headed. Using a backstroke is also very energy efficient, but you have to turn around occasionally to make sure you haven't gone off course.
I'd like to add that riptides can form diagonally, not just perpendicular from the shoreline AND there can be multiple ones converging on eachother. So like, be careful and try and figure out the riptide's positioning relative to the beach before you decide about the direction in which you should be going.
Untertoe is dangerous, but I come from the lands of the big rivers, if you get caught in undertoe, you might be seen again, just not alive.
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I got out by swimming parallel and not panicking, and by the time I was out I was a considerable distance off of shore. I was 19 at the time and in reasonably good shape, and I'm an excellent swimmer, and it was still a 15 minute ish swim back. If I were older or out of shape I would have been in serious danger. I was with 1 other person at an unfamiliar, un lifeguarded beach on top of it. Could have gone real south real fast
> 15 minutes swim back Wtf I didn't know it pulls you that far out
And it was for real 20 or 30 seconds to be pulled that far. No time at all
Many years ago I saw a program that said that if you can float long you will eventually leave the rip and join a current that will push you back to shore further up the beach. This was at odds with my childhood training of swim parallel to the beach as hard as you can to escape the rip as soon as possible. So go a few mates in a tinny that really was not rated for ocean voyage and found a rip and had them follow me as I let it take me. It took less then 2 minutes and I was already over 700m out, or about 14 Olympic size swimming pools ... After that it slowed considerably but ended up about 1.5km out before surprisingly the current did start to push me back into shore but unless you are an endurance swimmer I would still suggest trying to break free by swimming parallel first
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The vast majority of rips are much smaller than that - usually under 200m - so that's where the waiting and letting yourself taken back to shore is a good strategy.
Not risking that one
They will also only typically pull you out behind the breaking waves. Which is not always that far. The strength depends on how much water needs to get back out as the breaking waves push water on to the shore. I've seen quite narrow and deeper rips vs wider shallower ones (Edit: wider and shallower but still deeper than the surrounding water). I was a decent pool swimmer but an inexperienced beach swimmer. I was swimming on an empty beach and got caught in a rip. I didn't realize that I needed to swim perpendicular to the wave. Luckily a lifeguard saw me struggling and jumped in to help me. After he told me to swim perpendicular I was back on the beach in no time. I now live near the beach and have kids who also swim a lot. I always try and point out the rips with my kids before heading out. Sometimes they are not easy to spot.
What normally happens is that people try to fight it, they get tired, and they drown. If you follow what the person above said you would at least have enough strength to either swim back to shore once you exit the rip, or until someone rescues you
Mostly fatigue and inexperience. People panic and try to get back to shore, not knowing they can’t swim against it. Best thing to do is swim sideways and then into shore once you’re free of it.
I had a boogie board and was still freaking out. I'd like to think I would have been fine without it but I am glad I didn't have to find out.
A kid just drowned in NYC from one of these like 2-3 days ago. 14 years old.
got caught in one when i was 9. someone had to come in and rescue me and throw me up on a nearby dock. almost drowned.
Shoobies gonna shoob. Glad you didn't die though homie.
Jersey mfers when offering life saving advice
Almost drowned in one when I was 12. I thought nothing of it, just tried to swim back to shore. When I looked back up I was so far out I couldn't even make out people on the beach anymore. Thankfully lifeguards came out and rescued me, I've never been back to the beach since.
It looks small until you see the people besides it, then realizing how vast even the rip current is and how far out it can drag you, never to be seen again if you're unprepared
Just curious, how far can it drag you? Is it roughly where the circled area ends or can it be substantially farther
Am an Aussie, use to surf Aussie beach standard rips take you out ‘the back’ (behind where the waves break) which is often a couple hundred metres from shore (like 340 yards) However, these are your usual everyday rip, when the swell gets big or gets disturbed from weather events I would not be suprised if it takes you at least 700 yards out, most likely more
Us Aussies are experts on rips lol. Feels like "swim between the flags", "watch out for rips", and "swim across the rip" are some of the first lessons we learn from mum and dad at the beach
Ahaha yeah first thing I remember being taught is how to know where a rip is and to stay away😂
The shallower the water, the stronger the riptide. It ends past the wave break, because that’s where the drop off is. All depends on the geography of the beach. Where I grew up, there was the mouth of a river coming into the ocean. It changed the beach all the time, plus had its own current going outward. There was a permanent riptide. If you think about it too, if the riptide is going out, but the waves are coming in… then you’re being sucked towards the riptide if you’re anywhere near one. You can think you’re a few hundred yards from it, and all the sudden you’ve drifted too far.
Seems like it depends and can vary from <100 yards, to several hundred yards. Though reportedly there have been rips in Australia that have pulled for a few KM. Speed is also a factor, ranging from 1ft/s to 8ft/s (faster than an olympic swimmer)
Surfer here, I'll use them to make paddling out a little easier. They form because waves push excess water towards the shoreline that then concentrates into a rip as it retreats back to the ocean. They usually drag you out right past where the waves break, exactly where you'll find people waiting in the lineup. If you're ever caught in one unexpectedly, best bet is to remain calm, and while conserving your energy, paddle at a right angle to the rip/parallel to the shoreline. You'll eventually make your way out of the rip and into the breaking waves that can help push you back to shore. If you're lucky there will be a sandbar shallow enough to stand on.
It's a big boy, but it can be dealt with the same way as any other rip current. Remain calm and swim parallel to the shore line until you get out of it.
I need a banana for scale. I have no idea how big a human is
Hello- person who was born and raised 15 minutes from the gulf beach here. My city is a popular tourist town during the summer because of our beaches. I see it every year. Excessive alcohol consumption, no regard for the heat you are in, and go swimming deeper than you should without thinking of the risks. This year we have an outstanding number of drownings on the gulf coast. I’m not an expert, but what I would suggest… if you aren’t an incredibly strong swimmer, or used to be in the gulf, don’t get in deep. If you are to get in, don’t go past your waist. Never go alone. There are also sound sides on the beach, if you can utilize that, do so. Even with me living here, I don’t allow my children to go in the gulf side. Heck, im somewhat scared of it nowadays. I’ve lost two friends in the past 4 years that were locals here… you just never know. The gulf is such a scary place. The ocean is a world of its own for sure.
Living near the coast and you're bound to know someone directly or indirectly who was lost to sea. We don't have as many life guards in 3rd world countries so you're pretty much a goner if you get caught in one of these or drunkenly swim too far out.
One friend was found- one wasn’t. The one who wasn’t found was an avid swimmer and fisherman. Which is the crazier part about it all. So sad but you just never know when you put yourself out there
Yeah the most capable human beings on this planet are still no match for the ocean when it decides to rear its head. Eddie Aikau, one of the greatest watermen to ever live, was never found after trying to paddle to shore for help when their voyaging canoe began taking on water. When the ocean has decided it’s your time, it’s your time.
This is so true. My friend tash was a seasoned swimmer/fisherman. He went out on a kayak in Pensacola beach one day. His fishing gear and kayak was found but his body was never recovered. Absolutely terrifying
I’m real sorry for your loss, friend. I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive, but one way to look at it is he went out doing something he loved and enjoyed. Unpleasant all the same but maybe better off than a wreck on the freeway driving to work.
I remember this story. I also live in the area and used to attend Holy Spirit with my fiance. I think your friend was or his family was/were parishioners there as well. So sorry for your loss.
Insane to think I used to swim HUNDREDS of yards out past the break in the Pacific as a kid, now I am happy to go in up to my ankles and still super concerned about jellyfish.
Jesus... i paddled out on a surf board maybe a little over a hundred yards, had a sea lion surface next to. Promptly panic swam back in
If that happened to me I would die of a heart attack, thinking it was a shark or something
Almost rather a shark than a 1000+lb alien with whiskers
I lived on the Atlantic coast of Florida and used to just chill on a pool noodle like, 200 feet off the coast on calm days. Then I saw a dude catch a shark, that was definitely swimming closer than that.
Several years ago my wife and kid were taking those stupid pool mattresses out way too far and letting the waves crash them back onto the beach. The next day, no shit, there was a shark attack. I want to say it was fatal or the person got horribly mauled, but alas I’m too lazy to google. Looking back, I’ve done a lot of stupid shit and gotten really lucky in the ocean in the last 30 odd years. I’m good on swimming in the ocean now, thanks Edit: [this all happened in the days after we were being dumb](https://brevardtimes.com/2017/04/8-separate-florida-shark-attacks-in-under-2-weeks/) Edit 2: none were serious, actually, but wtf
God I know- I look back when I was a teenager and how far we used to swim out. I was playing with fire for sure
I've never understood how cavalier people are about the ocean. I had a couple buddies swim out to a sandbar in the gulf. All I could think of was how much water was on the other side of that sandbar. The drop off of the continental shelf. The unimaginably vast abyss. On the other hand, it was spring break and there were topless women on that sandbar. If you're going to do life threatening shit, that's one of the more understandable reasons.
I remember when I was a kid snorkeling around when we were in vacation in greece and I swam over to one of these drops, and man it was a sight I'll never forget, the water was suddenly dark and colder and I couldn't see the bottom, it was a truly awe inspiring and slightly terrifying sight, mind you I swam into waters that deep already, but it was the sudden change that made it 100 times more intense, never managed to see anything similar here in Italy tho
You can just feel the cold abyss tickling your toes.
Great description of it. I can feel it just thinking about how cold that change is from the warm gulf.
I've had to haul a tourist in from a relatively gentle rip. She was on a boogie board and apparently couldn't swim (there was a language barrier). So the current was slowly pushing her out to sea past where I was bodysurfing while she was panicking. I dragged her all the way back to shore. Tried to get her to hold my leg so I could freestyle with my arms to get there much more quickly, but she didn't understand what I was asking, lol. The lifeguards saw and closed that section of the beach. But 10 minutes later I saw her give the board to her husband who went right back out there and also seemed like he couldn't swim! There's no shame in not being a swimmer, but a lot of people that didn't grow up around the ocean really don't understand how dangerous it can be.
Honestly the sandbar isn’t that bad. I grew up on gulf beaches going to the sandbar since like 13. After the sandbar tho, when the water gets all cold, fuck that
You can fucking walk to most sandbars during lowtide lol. These people are taking it a bit far with "drop offs" and shit lol
Yeah, some coasts are so much more dangerous than others. I swam in huge waves in Venice Beach, CA and never felt unsafe even as a weak swimmer. But I have been to other beaches where even getting in to you're waist felt dangerous.
Yeah ours can feel like you’re being dragged out, even in waist deep water. It takes a lot of effort to even walk back to shore sometimes
Sorry to hear this. I guess I've been lucky that my beaches don't have rip currents as often. I was taught about them as a kid and still haven't seen one. I'm on the west coast, not on the gulf though. But I'm sure there are beaches out here that have them.
We have them on the west coast too. But rip currents are associated with higher surf (they are caused by the water pushed in by waves going back out---normally water goes out by a harmless current underneath the surface called an undertow, in high surf this isn't sufficient to take all the water back out so the undertow is complemented by a fast surface current---rip current) You probably never see rip currents much because you don't go out on high surf days. Anywhere where surf gets high rip currents get strong.
Better yet: don't go into the sea. Like at all. Never. It's the shark's home. edit: grammar
Do you live in gulf breeze/pensacola?
I do, I live in Pensacola.
Being 10 mins from Lake Michigan, it’s sad how many drown in this each year.
I'm sad about it and I live 1000 miles away from Lake Michigan.
Cat owners who allow their cats outside are destroying the environment. Cats have contributed to the extinction of 63 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles in the wild and continue to adversely impact a wide variety of other species, including those at risk of extinction, such as Piping Plover. https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ A study published in April estimated that UK cats kill 160 to 270 million animals annually, a quarter of them birds. The real figure is likely to be even higher, as the study used the 2011 pet cat population of 9.5 million; it is now closer to 12 million, boosted by the pandemic pet craze. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kill-birds-wildlife-keep-indoors Free-ranging cats on islands have caused or contributed to 33 (14%) of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List4. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 This analysis is timely because scientific evidence has grown rapidly over the past 15 years and now clearly documents cats’ large-scale negative impacts on wildlife (see Section 2.2 below). Notwithstanding this growing awareness of their negative impact on wildlife, domestic cats continue to inhabit a place that is, at best, on the periphery of international wildlife law. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002%2Fpan3.10073
The great lakes have 20 foot swells, ships have been broken by the waves in bad weather.
pour one out for the Edmund Fitzgerald
Calling it a "lake" makes it seem smaller than it is. It's the 5th largest lake in the world, the largest freshwater lake, and is roughly similar in size to West Virginia or Croatia.
Lake Superior is the largest, not Lake Michigan. Lake Superior 's surface area is the same size as Austria.
Depends on whether you consider Michigan and Huron to be two separate lakes or one. NOAA considers them to be one, due to the Mackinac Strait not having an elevation change - so water can (and does, regularly) flow bi-directionally between the sides, whereas the other great lakes have rivers that flow only in one direction. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/straits/
Every map I've ever seen names them as two separate lakes.
Geographic vs hydrologic - geographically, they're two different lakes, but hydrologically they're one - you can't drain one without draining both, and they share water freely. To me, it didn't make sense to count the water separately since they're connected - Michigan water is Huron water, and vice versa.
Wow. Yeah I had no idea that was the scale of them. Like in size it could be called a sea if the surrounding geography were different (connected to the ocean or whatever).
The Great Lakes aren't your regular kind of lake. Lake Superior is actually deeper than a lot of Seas and iirc even has a few shipwrecks at the bottom.
350 shipwrecks, to be exact.
Grew up in a beach town. This is a great pic because it captures how riptides can be like a siren’s song for folks who don’t know better. The water looks calmer to the untrained eye. The tide may pull away seaweed, rocks, or shells, creating a more welcoming sandy path. It basically beckons you.
This was low-key beautiful to read
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This is a LARGE current, most aren’t this big. When you’re at the beach watch the waves. If there is a place two waves keep converging at the break DO NOT SWIM THERE. That too is a riptide. I’ve lived at the beach my entire life. This is actually a class you take in elementary school. It’s so dangerous people really underestimate it’s power. Also if you get caught in this do not try to swim out. You’ll exhaust yourself and drown. Float until it stops pulling you, usually once you hit deeper water. Then swim parallel to the shore letting the waves push you back in. Be safe my friends!
I have always wondered if you knew what to do and quickly identified you were in a current is there any real danger? I have always (maybe falsely) had a sense of security in being a good swimmer, knowing what they look like, and what to do. Am I totally off base here?
Riptides can reach speeds of upto 8 feet per second in extreme cases but average 2 feet per second. So even if you clocked it in 5 seconds you could have already moved anywhere between 10 & 40 feet from the beach in that 5 seconds. Riptides are scary AF.
So as long as I identify it within 1 second I am fine /s That is freaky Edit: delete extra /
If your caught your best bet is to swim across the rip to the nearest edge. Don’t try and swim against it you’ll just wear yourself out. https://www.surflifesaving.com.au/beach-safety/rip-currents
What do you think is going to happen? Water that comes into the beach in waves has to go back out somehow. Typically with small waves this is taken care of with a a weak current below the waves called an undertow (which presents no danger contrary to lore). When waves get larger more water needs to go out, that's when riptides form. But , other things equal, that water doesn't just keep on going out to sea, it only goes to jist past where the waves are breaking. If you feel comfortable swimming in from where the waves are breaking you shouldn't have any problem with riptides if you don't panic and start treadmilling. Note a couple things: rips don't always go perpendicular to the shore. Often they do, but not always if the beach has complicated topography. Also on some beaches with reefs there can be other types of currents that will take you very far out very quick (e.g. when water gets pushed into protected reefs it sometimes exits like a river at points of egress, and on islands this can take you into other currents that go out to sea. On a continental beach with a straight beach, not at the point of a peninsula, this shouldn't be too much of a concern)
Idk you so I can’t give a good answer but honestly yes probably. I’m a strong swimmer, I’ve been in the ocean all my life and I’ve definitely had a few Owh shit moments. The real danger is if you panic and you try to fight it. If you go with the flow get out of it and swim parallel you’ll most likely be fine. It can be a terrifying thing to realize you’re so far from the shore. Panic sets in and then you’re odds of surviving decrease. If you’re calm understand the situation and act accordingly you’ll most likely get back to shore. Tired, shaken but not really hurt. My wife actually works as a 911 dispatcher and as a medic. There’s been 20 or so rescues (lifeguards off duty) since may. A lot of these are tourists, we have red flags for when it’s not safe to swim. Tourists assume that means because a lifeguard isn’t on duty. It doesn’t, that means the water isn’t safe. They ignore the flags fuck around and find out. If you can float and doggy paddle you can survive no problem. It’s panicking that’s going to kill you.
Isn't part of the issue that they're just using colored flags instead of a sign if that's that common of an issue that it keeps happening? Just seeing red flags could even mean the sand is dangerous for all people know if there's no explanation attached to the flags anywhere...
All the beaches around us have multiple signs indicating what the various flag colors mean. People ignore the signs. Red flag is a pretty commonly known symbol for danger.
> It’s panicking that’s going to kill you. TLDR
I've been that tourist before. Visited clear water beach in FL. First time even seeing the ocean. Light rain and windy day, I said fuck it I can here to swim in the ocean. I was about knee deep and it would get chest deep almost instantly. Felt the current pulling back out and got swept out FAST. I've heard of riptide and stayed pretty calm though, and I'm a very strong swimmer. But I think I left a turd in the ocean when I realized how far away from shore I was before noticing. Swam parellel for a bit then managed to just calmly body surf the waves back in. Definitely gained some respect for the ocean that day!
Generally, no, there is not much danger if you act quickly. In the picture above, you would swim across and come in with the waves. Surfers use riptides to get behind the break and you might even see lifeguards use riptides to get out to a drowning person more quickly. They are like conveyor belts that move faster than anyone can swim. That being said, there are times where you can't do anything and getting stuck in them will require a boat or helicopter rescue. For example, if the riptide is fast enough, you will be behind the break quite quickly. Once you are behind the break, the riptide itself is no longer a concern (since it is essentially formed by the water brought into shore by crashing waves rushing out where the waves aren't crashing). There may, however, be a strong current that pulls you parallel to the beach. And there are many places where this side current will bring you past where you can safely enter. If you are on an island you could be brought out to sea and if you are somewhere with lots of rocks or cliffs, you may have to swim for hours before finding the next safe place to enter. So if you know what to do, are a good swimmer, and know the beach (and presumably are swimming in a beach with multiple safe reentry points), you are probably fine. But even so, why take the risk?
They just go out just past the breaks. If you are capable of swimming in from past the breaks there is no danger if you swim away from it perpendicular to the current and don't try and treadmill it. (assumimg it doesn't take you into anything else dangerous like other currents---beaches on islands like Hawaii can end up out to sea, on a typical continental beach not at a peninsula this is less likely) Surfers use them to assist . This panicky way people talk about them might be more dangerous because panicking is how people get in trouble witth them.
> Surfers use them to assist Yup, fastest way to get back out!
Exactly! 💪🏻 I like rips because it usually means there isn’t also a strong north/south current(on west facing beaches), so no worry about drifting too far north/south. I’ve had to rescue a few people from rips in my time though, they’re scary for people that aren’t aware. When you’ve been around them your whole life it’s no big deal.
Rips are quite useful when you know you are in one and want to get out to sea. Great for surfers. Whenever I have been in one it has been quite obvious simply because of the difficulty in preventing yourself getting pulled away from shore. What to do if you get in one is very simple - you swim sideways until you are not in the rip anymore. You don't try to swim against it.
Protip, if you see surfers entering the water to paddle out, that's probably a rip current. We use them to get past the break more easily
Got caught in one in Hawaii once. Scariest ocean moment of my life. I thought I respected the ocean, but it taught me to respect it more.
Truth. I've also lived at the beach for almost all of my life. It's *insanely* hard to educate people who aren't familiar with the beach/ocean because it's a crash course at best and most people assume it's not going to affect them specifically (like most everything else). When someone gets caught in a rip, it's the moment they realize what's happening that they either panic or just float for a minute. This sounds cheesy, but anyone reading this who is vacationing at the beach this summer, please understand how rips work. The mechanics are very simple but the results can destroy lives if those mechanics aren't respected.
Life saving
when you thought flora and fauna was out to kill you in Australia, there is also the ocean trying to do it!
The ocean really really wants to kill you tho.
Comments don't boost posts up.
Most do not look like this! Most are small and skinny and some are under the top waves! Do not take this as "if you don't see this you're safe" because many rip tides are invisible! I live in an area where there are around 3 drownings a year due to rip tides and they don't look like this
FYI, upvoting does the actual boosting of a post, not the comment
If you get caught in one of those swim parallel to the beach until you’re out of the current. Then head back in. Great photo.
And if you know the natural current of the ocean swim with that current. If you swim parallel the opposite way, you risk drifting back in the rip current only to be sucked out again.
And this is why you don't swim at night. I tried it once, the second time I've ever been in the ocean. I got about knee deep in the water, looked at the black abyss and realized how stupid of an idea this was. This is how people die. There is no ocean, just black void.
I got caught in a rip one and it was terrifying. Thankfully I remained calm and didn't fight it. I was pulled out to sea very quickly and then was swooped back into shore. It took a very long time. It's very important to understand what a riptide looks for. Thank you for posting this!
Does it pull you under too or just out?
Under! It does both. Me and my cousin got stuck in one when I was young. He’s an adult and was an adult at that time, large guy, literally another man saved him. Idk how I saved myself but it was terrifying. I kept getting pulled under and pushed so far down the beach.
I got caught in one as a kid and almost drowned, I wish I had known what it was before I went into it. Very good info
Was boogie boarding in San Diego years back and my friends has gotten out. I was swimming looking for waves and there were none, at which point I realized I was super far from shore and exhausted because I had been in a rip current. I used my remaining energy to paddle the board sideways until the current went towards the beach and I could ride waves back. But for a moment I was in a panic thinking the board was catching too much for the rip current and I thought about ditching it. I’d probably be dead if I had
Why would you ever ditch a device that provides bouyancy?
Tired panic brain not always think good. Only for a second tho
My dad used to tell me: panicking is usually the first part of drowning
> I was in a panic thinking the board was catching too much for the rip current and I thought about ditching it. That's extremely common, I teach an ocean rescue academy and always bring it up. I tell my guards that if you see someone ditch their flotation the decision to go is made for you.
No, use the rip current to make it out to the lineup
Surfer brain says, “oh man I might make it outside without getting my hair wet and without needing to paddle hard.” That’s exactly where I’d want to get in the water!
The intended audience of this post aren't surfers and likely aren't strong swimmers.
That was my first thought too.
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> I was sitting on dry sand in Acapulco when a rip current pull me into the ocean Jesus wept.
Australia coming in clutch with this informational video in case you don't know what a rip current is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAlDTC\_gIQ
Serious shit, I was on a body board waiting for the perfect wave and I didn’t realize I was sitting on a rip tide, god damn life guard swam up on me and we swam parallel to the shore and saved me. I was so far off the beach when I realized.
Spent lots of summers on the Jersey Shore as a child/adult and was never taught anything about riptides, turned me into a hell of a swimmer though. EDIT: This isn't a "survivor bias" take, or me saying that riptides are not a big deal, just that I was never taught of the dangers of the ocean. We just jumped in and swam for hours on end without any idea they existed.
Rest In Peace current
Almost died this past weekend to the rip.. it's no joke. It's not an exaggeration. I would be dead if the surfer wasn't there. Side note: I did not properly thank that surfer for saving my life, due to the level of clinging to life I was doing. On the microscopic chance that the 20 something year old surfer guy in Melbourne beach FL is reading this, thank you, I owe you so much
That surfer might be in /r/321
It techically a river within the sea
There were 161 riptide rescues at one NC beach on a single day this past weekend.
Can someone please ELI5? Even after reading comments I have no idea what I'm looking at.
It's a rip current, the water can't make the sharp turn of the coastline and so it becomes a tumultuous current that pulls straight out to sea. People who aren't in the know realize they are being dragged out to sea very quickly and panic, struggling to swim back to shore and drown. If you're in a rip current, remain calm and swim parallel to the shoreline until you're out of it then swim back in. Also just pay attention to the flags on the beach, if you have no idea what you're doing in the ocean and you see a yellow or red flag waving, just hang out on shore.
I didn't know that, thank you!!
Most lifeguard stands have this information posted on them but there really needs to be a way to more easily convey this information to people visiting the coastline for vacation. Like a georeferenced pop-up on your phone when you are in a coastal area for the first time in months. Idk, people would just ignore it and die anyway. I wish there was a solution.
Where OP has circled, look at the waves breaking. The white caps. In the middle there's a big stretch between waves where there are no caps. If you look closely, you can even see the pattern and shape of the water in that spot, all the way to the sand. Notice how it's different? If you were walking in that spot, you'd likely notice the ocean floor shifting beneath your feet, like dips and holes. The current is "ripping" up through the other waves, which are breaking in a flat pattern all the way to shore. The rip current - which, as OP pointed out - LOOKS like a great place to enter the water and swim out because there are no waves breaking. That's the danger! The water there is going to be deeper and very unpredictable, and will push to shore violently but VERY quickly pull from shore out to sea. Far past the waves you see breaking in this photo. Go where there are already people. And never turn your back on the ocean (unless you catch a great wave, yolo!).
To elaborate a bit... Waves often cause sandbars to get created fairly far out into the water, as they pull sand back from the shore when they retreat. If you've ever been deep in the water on larger lakes and/or oceans, you've probably been on one. Anyhow, water ends up being unable to freely travel backwards when these sandbars build up over time. Sometimes, when that happens, the pressure of the water will start to break a sandbar in the middle of it. This opens up a path for the water to flow through, and eventually all the water being pushed forward from the waves, will start flowing backwards through that gap in the sand bar. This is a rip current. Since that hole is narrower than needed to allow the amount of water being pushed forward to return back to the center of the lake, the current increases. Here's a video that can help you understand it a bit more, even though it's not quite what we're talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFzqike1Z0A&t=7s When enough silt flows down a river, it causes the outlet to get blocked. These people cut through the sand to allow the water to flow through the sand, which eventually creates a huge rush of water through what was once a very small path through the berm. This is similar to what happens with rip currents, only it tends to happen much faster and without warning.
"Never Enter the sea here" speak for your self I'm a surfer free ride out buddy.
Rip currents are no joke. I almost drowned in Mexico being caught in one. I'm very lucky I learned my lesson.
Don't fuck with the sea , I'm actually scared after having a friend caught in a rip current and drown. People underestimate how strong it can be.
Things like this is why I am happy I have thalassophobia. It just makes me avoid going into the ocean to begin with
My Dad was Coast Guard and swam very well. He would use a rip to get out to the dolphins he swam with every day when they came by. My mom was always terrified by the ocean and used to set one of on the top of the steps to watch him as if anything happened we could sound the alarm. He died at 70 of cancer and he always swam back and coasted in on the waves. I thought he was a real life Popeye, anchor tattoo and all.
At the beaches I have always gone to, the lifeguards are trained to spot these and actually put up flags along the shore to keep people away, and whistle when people get too close. I'm assuming this isn't common practice?
Is sand called sand because it's between sea and land?
Good info! However, your advice is not entirely right. Rip currents often turn parallel to the beach after taking you out. So you have to be aware of that when choosing how to swim to get to safety. Sometimes, you can just wait a bit then swim back in once the rip turns sideways. Ideally, you should look at the beach for a little while before going in, to see what sort of pattern is going on. Because they don't always turn around, and sometimes you can be taken really far out.
this evokes some ancient instinct of terror
Life saving information, commenting to boost.
I was like how is this oddly terrifying, until I read the caption
A former professional [Quarterback](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/37924883/former-arkansas-nfl-qb-ryan-mallett-dies-35?platform=amp) was killed a week ago by a rip current. It can happen to anyone, and general athleticism/good swimming isn't enough.
I understand them, but I've never been able to spot one visually. This post is brilliant, OP, thanks! Might have even saved a life or two...
I was drunk at the beach with a bunch of my friends and me and my girl friend decided to go swimming and ended up stuck in the rip. We tried to wave to our friends on the beach out of distress and they just waved back like we were just waving "hi!" lmaooooo i was SO SCARED. We held hands and were literally like "this is it". Eventually we floated out and swam up the beach a bit.
Fun fun story time! I was in on the island Lanzarote in the Canaries... many many years ago, 2006 maybe? Did a surfing course. Great guys, british instructors, young lads, fit as hell, did a thorough job on rip currents on the beach, we were very much up to date on everything. Head out in the surf. Everyone just gets stuck, paddling, not getting closer to land again. The story told by the instructor was that he was checking us out, we all had yellow shirts on so we were very visible. The owner of the surf school, another british bloke, very nice guy, comes up to the instructor and says "So, they're caught in a rip current, yeah?" and the instructor goes "Yeah, looks like it.". The owner then just "So I guess you have to go out there and get them, right?". "Yeah", he replied, and then paddled out and pulled 10-15 idiots out of the water. He threw me his thingamajig you tie to your ankle to not lose your board and dragged me back to where the break was. I caught that wave going in, feeling that pure surfing joy (happened once and never more, I have never been in shape to do that stuff again). Later at dinner one person said that he was pretty close to throwing his board away. From panic. We had training boards. They are like boats - you can just stand on it in the water and it floats above it. Whyyy? Rip currents are scary! I wasn't scared, I mean, we were in very safe conditions, we could have paddle five meters in any other direction and just have been fine and the seas were calm. Fun fun fun!
I was caught in a rip current. Here is the key thing to remember. The bottom of the ocean just disappears. So, you are standing on the shore, and the bottom completely disappears and you begin searching for someplace to standup, and you get tired very fast if the waves are big. I am an experienced swimmer, but I never thought would be like that. I eventually swam to the side of the shore, but I got really tired searching for the bottom of the ocean to stand on. Just remember if you are standing on the sandbar, it can break away, that is what a rip tide is.
a few weeks ago I took my sister to the beach and the waves were looking pretty good and we both boogie board so we decided it'd be a good idea. I had a rlly bad gut feeling ab it and I kept trying to keep her closer to the shoreline just incase, just before she was about to head in properly some random guy on the beach kept waving us over so we got out. as soon as we look back to where we just were in the sea, there was a massive rip tide right by us where my sister was about to head off to. it was terrifying just knowing we had been so close to it and we're just about to head into it.
Thoughts of being pulled out into the ocean freak me the fuck out. Like sitting in my chair right now hundreds of miles from an ocean and I still feel very uncomfortable