Mortality....

[Big H]

My wife has a friend who has a brother who was visiting her here in Bali. He is from a big city; his sister says that he was a good swimmer. He got caught in a rip at Kuta beach this morning while swimming and was drowned. Apparently he was recovered hundreds of meters out to sea where he was spit out by the rip.

Be careful everyone, learn about your break and the ocean...it can happen just that fast.

[Tudeo]

Terrible story!

But it can indeed happen so easy..

I was teaching a kid of a friend in seminiak. Put my legrope on his leg, walked out with him, pushed him in a wave. I was standing comfortable in chest high water.. But I stepped of the sandbar and the rip threw me out. I realised I was in trouble and gave my friend on the beach the alarm signal and started swimming parallel to the beach. I got out of the rip onto the sandbar and could get out. But I was shocked deeply how easy this happens.

[Big H]

Especially that stretch from Kuta to Seminyak....Nusa Dua has its share too.

Be aware anyone who comes here or recommends learning to surf at Kuta; include a quick warning about rip currents and you might save someone. We aren't the only ones in the world with rips; I taught my kids how to handle themselves and we play a game when we go to the beach called "spot the rip"....they are getting pretty good at it.

[jaffa1949]

Sadly strong swimmer , does not work without understanding rips.
Strong swimmer without knowledge tries to swim against it, fatigue and panic end of story.
I have advised strong swimmers about the rip in which they have been swimming and told to F off , about 5 minutes later time to rescue them . Often sadly from cultures and nations that don't know surf, afraid of the waves and head to the calm of the rip.
Some to their credit listen !

Seriously though the whole Kuta stretch can shift dramatically and almost instantly with the first pulse of a new big swell and the first increase of the rips are horrendous, I've been nastily surprised there.
Nusa Dua and Sanur has one of the deepest trenches offshore the amount of water running through, scary , the whirlpool bigger than outriggers as you cross to Nusa lembongan

[Big H]

I was going to expand but lost my train of thought....age, et. al.......

We here in Bali aren't the only ones with rip currents....I am always telling tourists that I see frolicking near rips to be careful and "I think you'll like it better over there".....share the knowledge wherever you are with those who could use the tips.....you might save a life without knowing it.


My wife asked me if there was a difference between swimming in a pool and in the ocean (she doesn't swim at all)......I laughed.....


....that's the thing....the spot that's calm with no waves breaking looks like the perfect swimming spot to the uninitiated.....


I told a kid the other day on a foamie to paddle out of the rip he was in and come sit in the lineup next to me.....he told me he was ok.....and I watched him go out to sea then spend the better part of the next half hour dragging his worn out a$$ back to the lineup.....he wouldn't look at me.....told another two the next day who were in the same rip and they thanked me, came next to me and then wouldn't leave me alone for the rest of my sesh..... ......my reward!

[dtc]

White is right, green is mean

[oldmansurfer]

White is right, green is mean

Not at a sand break:)

[oldmansurfer]

We have a lot of effort in putting out flyers and having videos streaming at the airports to inform visitors of the risks but people ignore it anyway. "Common sense" leads them astray. They figure if I just do this little thing it will be ok.

[oldmansurfer]

I think it is really amazing that with all that goes into surfing we can do it. Just taking a drop on a steep waves is truly an amazing feat. It also seems to me amazing that we are alive. We are like this huge chemical reaction that must be kept within certain parameters or we will die. In our daily lives we drive or ride in vehicles at high speeds in such a manner that if we deviate a few feet over we may die. From the moment we are born there is one certainty and that is we will die, yet most people fear that event. Put someone at the beach and in some cases that fear of dying goes out the window and instead they imagine fun and exciting things will happen. Death has been my friend in a way. In my early life I struggled a lot and was depressed. The one thing that made it all bearable to me was death. I knew that death was there waiting to release me from my suffering existence. Death was my only comfort at the darkest points of my life. I chose to risk my life many times because I was willing to accept death as a possible outcome and truthfully I thought I would survive (and the thrill of it all was so great). Fear death? Not me but these days I am not about to hurry up that process much either.

[jaffa1949]

Ah The depressive daredevil syndrome, it is out there in some people.
If they are not held in apathy by depression they can take on dangerous challenges for the adrenaline or just to ease the responsibility of the mundane for them.
The other side if it is Bipolar then the manic side is absolute belief in infallibility and invincibility in physical challenge.
Scratch a lot of big wave riders and there has been public acknowledgement of these issues for them. Often too there is an un-useful set of self medication on drugs to try and work through it .
Read the Biography of Tom Carroll by his brother Nick Carroll there is a lot of insight into this and it is courageous writing.

[oldmansurfer]

Put that book on my wish list.