It pretty much does what it wants, to be honest.
. But it’s also a place of hidden dangers. The placid seas that you swam in before lunch could change drastically by midday: rip locations are never constant; calm waters can be replaced with fierce currents; waves can grow exponentially with approaching storms. So it’s important to not only expose kids to the wonders of the ocean, but make them aware of the often invisible hazards.
Sylvia Wolff, who worked for a decade as an ocean rescue division chief in North Carolina’s Outer Banks and who created a junior lifeguard program , builds models of rips with her junior guards to show how these dangerous currents work. By digging out the letter “T” in the sand—with the top bar parallel to the shoreline and the vertical part running perpendicular—Wolff shows kids how an incoming wave fills the T.
Before going into the water, sit with kids to identify rips. Typically, look for areas where waves are not breaking; where there might be ripples on the surface; where sand might be churned up from the bottom of the ocean. Explain to kids that rip currents don’t always travel perpendicular to the shoreline; they can cut diagonally, too. Typically, strong rip currents are ever-present next to a jetty or pier, as these objects are pressing the sand down, causing a slope.
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