As Charlie Ross watched his grandfather’s cottage on the shore in Savage Harbour slip farther and farther from his view, he was consumed with panic.
Last July, the then 12-year-old Charlottetown native and his mother, Beth Johnston, were caught in a rip current off a north shore beach and were lucky to escape.
Ross said he couldn’t make sense of what was happening at the time and instinctively began swimming towards shore as fast as he could.
“I was just getting really tired, I didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “I didn’t know really what a rip current was until I realized that I might die.”
Ross was a guest speaker at a presentation on rip currents at the Delta hotel in Charlottetown on June 9, presented by Chris Houser, dean of science at the University of Windsor.
Houser, a coastal geomorphologist who studies how beaches change, said Ross isn’t alone when it comes to recognizing or understanding the nature of rip currents, which he said cause about 4,000 fatalities globally each year.
A rip current, often incorrectly referred to as a riptide, is a fast-flowing current of water that moves away from shore and back towards the open water, with typical speeds anywhere from 50-60 centimetres per second up to about a meter per second.
And while most people can swim at this pace, Houser said the problem is that because they are fighting the power and direction of the current, they will tire quickly, as Ross discovered during his ordeal last summer.
Storms cause stronger currents, which can reach speeds up to 1.5 to two meters per second, and Houser said the fastest rip current ever, as recorded by his research team off the coast in Costa Rica, was three meters per second.
“They can get exceptionally fast,” Houser said, adding to give perspective, the world’s fastest swimmer Michael Phelps’ fastest recorded time is 2.1 meters per second.
“Even the fastest swimmer is not as fast as some of these currents can get.”
To spot a rip current, look for places in the water where the waves aren’t breaking - the flat spots in the line of breaking waves.
Houser said a high tide over the sandbar means less breaking and the rip current is weaker. Conversely, low tide over the bar means more breaking and the rip gets stronger.
“So you may have small waves, but at low tide you’re going to strengthen your rip - so it may look calm to get into the water, but it actually has a much stronger rip current.”
Houser also said it’s important to note that a rip current is strongest at the top of the water’s surface, towards a person’s chest, which is the most buoyant part of the body.
“The wave will hit them and lift them up and bring them out and they soon can’t touch bottom. So, the waves are coming in and you’re being lifted and pulled out to the ocean.”
As this happens, human instinct is to try and regain footing on the sand beneath, which is a dangerous position to be in, he said.
“By putting your body in a vertical position, your mouth and nose are at water level. You’re trying to yell, you’re breathing heavily, your mouth is open and you’re sinking,” he said. “So, if you see somebody looking towards shore, head out the water tilted back and doing this doggy paddle/ladder climb, that means that they are probably in danger - they’re in a drowning position.”
Common advice when caught in a rip is to swim parallel to shore, but Houser said that’s not necessarily the best advice, because once in the rip, it is difficult to tell up from down, left from right, and as waves crash down from behind, the swimmer becomes disoriented, he said, adding most often the rips will bring the swimmer back to shore.
“If you can’t swim parallel, float,” he said, adding it’s important to stay relaxed during the ordeal. “Water comes straight through the middle (of the rip) and about 85 per cent of the time, you’ll come back to the shoreline.”
There’s about a 15 per cent chance of being shot out beyond the breakers, but Houser said while it will bring a swimmer farther out, it will also bring them out of the current, allowing them to swim to the sides of the rip, parallel back to shore.
In a heavy tourist market like P.E.I., visitors don’t necessarily have knowledge of the beach, so Houser said when going to look for the warning signs and information signs around the beach about the conditions of the surf, and to let others know of the dangers.
Each person has a slightly different risk factor, including ability to swim, intoxication, a lack of knowledge of the beach or simply be bad timing, he said.
“So, it’s a combination of factors that will ultimately determine who needs rescue and who will drown.”
What to do if you're caught in a rip current:
- Don’t fight the current
- Swim out of the current, then to shore
- If you can’t escape, float or tread water
- If you need help, call or wave for assistance
Safety:
- Know how to swim
- Never swim alone
- If in doubt, don’t go out
Sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association at Ripcurrents.noaa.gov
United States Lifesaving Association at Usla.org
