DYE IN SURF A RIPPING IDEA

SURF lifesavers have spent a lifetime trying to make our beaches idiot proof.

Every year beachgoers are warned to heed the safety message: swim between the flags and resist the compulsion to believe you are bulletproof.

Every year louts with little regard for their safety, or that of others, ignore that advice.

Past reports into beach safety have found that about 85 per cent of surf rescues involved plucking swimmers from rips, and that 87 per cent of Queenslanders confessed they did not know how to escape one. It was also found that fewer than 5 per cent of Australians believed they knew how to identify a rip.

For a nation so aligned to swimming and its beaches, those statistics are alarming.

The best advice for visitors is to ask lifeguards when they go to the beach but a quick guide to spotting a rip involves looking for darker, and therefore deeper, water, or for murky brown water caused by sand being stirred up off the bottom. Rips could have a smoother surface with much smaller waves than the white water of the surf zone alongside, or a rippled look when the water around is generally calm.

As the coronavirus crisis has reinforced, tourism is the primary revenue earner for the Gold Coast and beach safety is paramount to protecting our reputation as a world-class stopover.

Because some beachgoers refuse to swim responsibly, authorities are forced to come up with new ways to preserve our image as a fun and safe destination.

Hence the Australia-first trial to use dye drops in the sea to identity rips for the uneducated, and to keep beaches safe during peak times.

It is a welcome development, particularly with our large international visitor numbers where language is often a barrier.

Of course, we would not need it if bathers followed the simple, golden message of swimming between the flags. Don’t be an idiot.