A Day in the Life of

A Day in the Life Of Aaron Lyttle

Aaron Lyttle is a surf lifeguard and the club captain of the Nelson Surf Life Saving Club. He loves the ocean and gets out surfing whenever he can here in Tasman Bay, or does road trips with his son Jed, often down to Westport, chasing swell. When he’s not chasing the surf or fishing, he is more often than not running around after his two teenagers or at his day job as an aircraft engineer for Air New Zealand.

6.45am

7.00am

Get woken up by our hungry cat Freddie. After five minutes I get up and have a stretch, then wander down to the kitchen, flick on the jug and proceed to feed Freddie and make my partner Sophie a cup of coffee while checking my messages, the news, the swell and weather conditions, as today my patrol team is rostered on to patrol Tāhunanui beach.

I deliver Sophie’s fresh coffee to her in bed. With the surf being flat in Nelson today (again!?) I jump back in bed and read my book for a while, which is Lee Child’s latest one ‘Better Off Dead’.

7.45am

I grab my phone and send out a reminder text message to my team that we’re rostered on patrol at the beach this afternoon. From the replies I see we will have seven surf lifeguards there today which is good news! We will hopefully have a chance to get some training in while on patrol.

8.00am 8.15 - 11.00am

I get up, have some breakfast and have a more in depth look at the latest news, mostly all the sports results.

Only real chance today to get any jobs done around the house. Seeing as it’s a typical Nelson summers day I get the standard load of washing on while Sophie waters the vegetable garden. After which I tinker with a few projects in the shed, including repairing some damage on my son’s surfboard. I love listening to my old CD’s while out there. This morning I’m playing a couple from Talking Heads.

11.40am

After getting some lunch and snacks together, my daughter Isabel and I head off to the Sealord Marine Rescue Centre to prepare for this afternoon’s patrol.

12.00pm

Meet the patrol team at the Rescue Centre. We make a plan for the afternoon ahead, and get the inflatable rescue boat (IRB), surf truck and other equipment ready to go then head to Tāhunanui beach.

12.45pm

As the old boy on the team, I seem to get the job of picking up and towing our patrol tower onto the beach. We assess the beach conditions, then get the tower set up and ready to put up the patrol flags at 1pm.

1 - 5.00pm

Beach patrol was relatively quiet today. Just small waves with a tide that was going out. Talked with plenty of beach goers, with our only incident being a small shell cut on a young child’s foot which we gave some first aid. We try and get training done while on patrol but with the good weather there was lots of people down at the beach today so we kept vigilant, watching the people swimming.

5 - 6.00pm

Time to pack up patrol for the day. We let the remaining swimmers know our patrol is finished and to keep safe. Then drop the flags, pack up the tower and return it to the compound and head back to the Rescue Centre to wash down the IRB, surf truck, and other equipment and pack it away ready for the next use.

6 -10.00pm

After a busy day in the sun and sea breeze I head home for a shower and some tea and catch up on the sports news, then relax for the evening watching a bit of TV before getting stuff ready for work tomorrow. Then head off to bed and read a little more before going to sleep.