Beware the rip…

This Easter, the family went on a camping trip to the North Shore, which is just north of Noosa in Queensland. Some friends of ours own some land out there just on the beach. It was the hard-core style camping, no mod-cons, no showers or toilet blocks - grab a spade and dig a hole ;-) The beach was great apart from all the dickhead four wheel drivers who drive along the beach as if it is a motorway (some four year was hit by one further down the beach). We stayed in tents with about five other families, cooked on the camp fire, went surfing, rode bikes, played soccer – it was awesome.

The water was amazingly warm and we spent a lot of time swimming and playing around in the waves. At one point I was talking to some others in the surf and when I turned Caleb, our youngest who is six, had drifted down the beach and was caught in a rip and was slowly being dragged out to sea. His older brother who is eight was trying to swim after him to help but was also struggling. So I ended up having to swim over and pull Kyle back to make sure he was ok, then swim out to Caleb. It was just awful looking at Caleb’s face, as he had this look of total fear and helplessness as he was floating out – he did a remarkable job of keeping his head above the water (thank goodness for all those swimming lessons). I managed to swim out and grab hold of him and swim back to a point where I could stand and some others helped us in. In all, it was pretty darn scary and a reminder of how quickly things can go wrong.

Lesson learned: Make sure you keep an eye on the kids at all times, and make sure you check for rips ahead of times!