Spotting a rip

Living in Perth, we grow up around the beach and although I am no expert on the surf lifestyle we have an issue with people getting caught in rips and I guess I have an obligation to warn beach goers on the dangers of getting caught in rips.

Waves hit the beach with a large water deposited on the shore, that water has to go somewhere and the is back out to the ocean. That water rushing back out carves channels into the sand creating a path for the water to flow. The channel is relatively deeper water than the rest of the shore where the waves generally don't break in that area. When you are looking you will see a flow of water back out, this may be darker in colour, may be turbulent and may have weed or other contaminants flowing back out to sea.

So what do you do if you are caught in a rip? Well, firstly you don't try to swim against the rip as this will cause fatigue and severe risk of drowning. I would recommend floating with the surf, sure you get dragged out to sea but if you conserve energy then you will move out of the area and can allow the waves to hopefully push you back to shore. You can't swim against a rip, no one can so you are really left with little choice except to maintain buoyancy until you are dragged out of the channel and then work out what to do after that.