What to do when in a rip current

By Dave Dalkiewicz Contributing Writer

(June 9, 2023) This column/article will focus on a very important aspect of the ocean along the shoreline, where the water meets the land.

Not to harp on this subject, but it proves to be an extreme aspect of ocean safety.

Ironically, it’s a boon to the surfer, at least the more experienced ones, but an absolute bane to the swimmer, experienced or not.

What is written about here is known as a rip current.

Often called a rip tide, rip currents are not tides although they can be exacerbated as the tide recedes. In a large way they can be rather sneaky.

One can be playing, messing around out in the ocean, having a good time, cooling off on a hot and humid summer day or simply going for a swim.

Pretty soon, they can find themselves getting pulled out to sea especially when they are unable to touch bottom if only wading close to the shore.

If this frolicking ocean goer finds themselves in this situation, the first thing to do is not panic.

Easy to say, but certainly useful to get out of the grip of the rip current.

The second thing to do, or really not do, is to try to swim against the rip current.

The water of the rip is moving out to sea too fast to swim against. Even the strongest swimmer is going to have too hard of a time trying to swim against a rip current.

This goes for someone with the caliber and credentials of multi-olympic medal winner Michael Phelps.

The rip current is moving away from the shore too rapidly. The swimmer will tire quickly and make a bad situation even worse.

So what to do?

We would come to the third step at this point. Try to relax, float and swim parallel to the beach to get out of the current.

Even a diagonal tract would be better than trying to swim directly against the rip current.

Rip currents are breaks or valleys in the sandbars which cover most of the ocean bottom close to the shore.

As the water and waves move in they also move out and these breaks, valleys or indentations are created.

Thus, the water moving back out runs faster than the water around the sandbar indentation. This is the rip current.

All of this description is illustrated on the back of lifeguard stands and the guards are generally happy to explain