Many peo­ple are won­der­ing what oc­curred in T&T’s coastal wa­ters over the last few days that led to the drown­ing of a 60-year-old woman at Dami­an Bay and the dis­ap­pear­ance of a boy, nine, and a teenag­er at sea.

While the haz­ard–rip cur­rents–are en­tire­ly nat­ur­al, the in­ter­ven­tion of life­guards could save lives. How­ev­er, at the three beach­es where the in­ci­dents oc­curred over the week­end, no life­guards have been post­ed in these ar­eas by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

An­tho­ny Paul, a life­guard at the Mara­cas Beach Unit, ex­plained that at Dami­an Bay, Las Cuevas; Mis­sion Bay, To­co; and be­tween Ma­yaro and Man­zanil­la, where all three in­ci­dents oc­curred, al­though these ar­eas are pop­u­lat­ed, no life­guards pa­trol these beach­es.

How­ev­er, oth­er chal­lenges are afoot in ar­eas where life­guards are ex­pect­ed to be post­ed, like Mara­cas Beach and Tyri­co Bay. Paul said, “We’re still un­der­staffed. Most of the (life­guard) tow­ers at Mara­cas Beach are not func­tion­ing, on­ly two right now. All the rest of them are di­lap­i­dat­ed. The bench broke down, the roof leak­ing.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Mara­cas Bay fol­low­ing two drown­ings at the start of 2023, three of the sev­en tow­ers were deemed safe to use. As a re­sult, one of Trinidad’s most vis­it­ed beach­es re­mains at risk.

Over the week­end, there were no alerts, watch­es, or warn­ings from the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice or any alert state­ments in any of the Met Of­fice’s of­fi­cial pub­lic weath­er fore­casts. Seas re­main near calm in shel­tered ar­eas, with Paul ex­plain­ing Mara­cas Beach looked as smooth as a lake at times through the week­end. Yet, life­guards had to res­cue two peo­ple be­tween Sat­ur­day and Sun­day.

How­ev­er, the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some of the high­est high tides and low­est low tides for the year–called King Tides. These sig­nif­i­cant vari­a­tions in tides can cre­ate a hid­den but dead­ly haz­ard un­der the tran­quil wa­ters called rip cur­rents.

What is a rip cur­rent?

A rip cur­rent is a strong ocean sur­face cur­rent that flows away from the shore. Dif­fer­ent fac­tors can cause a rip cur­rent to form, but the main con­tribut­ing fac­tor is large, break­ing waves. Rip cur­rents al­so oc­cur when there are breaks in the sand bars be­low the wa­ter’s sur­face as wa­ter re­turns to the ocean.

The pri­ma­ry dan­ger of rip cur­rents is their sea­ward flow, quick­ly pulling un­aware swim­mers. Rip cur­rent risk can de­pend on the weath­er, the shape of the beach, tides, and oth­er fac­tors.

The av­er­age rip cur­rent moves be­tween one to two feet per sec­ond, but if a cur­rent is pow­er­ful, it can pull you out in­to the open ocean at an as­ton­ish­ing eight feet per sec­ond. Even the best Olympic swim­mers will not be able to swim against such a strong cur­rent. Mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion worse, rip cur­rents tend to gain speed dra­mat­i­cal­ly over a short pe­ri­od.

Many may as­sume waist-high wa­ter is a suf­fi­cient refuge from rip cur­rents. How­ev­er, rip cur­rents af­fect all ar­eas where waves crash near the shore. This means if you are not able to re­main float­ing and swim, a trip to the beach can end trag­i­cal­ly.

Karl Her­nan­dez, the Pa­trol Cap­tain of the Mara­cas Life­guard Unit, who al­so shares life­guard­ing du­ties with Tyri­co Bay, ex­plained, “Over three years now, it has no life­guard in Tyri­co be­cause of the short­age. The last time they (the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty) take life­guards was 17 years ago.

 “If it had any life­guards across there, I could al­most guar­an­tee it would nev­er have any drown­ing. The places they drown it’s the rip cur­rents in Tyri­co and Mara­cas. We have the worst rip cur­rents. We al­ways mark there with a flag.” Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Fitzger­ald Hinds, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, for a re­sponse, but there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

The ex­pert's ad­vice

Al­lis­ter Liv­ingston, who leads Wa­ter Safe­ty Ed­u­ca­tion with­in the Life­guard Ser­vices of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, ex­plained that peo­ple are un­aware of all the dan­gers of go­ing in­to the wa­ter.

“Peo­ple have to be safe when they go to the beach­es. Kids should not go deep­er than waist depth. Non-swim­mers should not go deep­er than waist depth. No flota­tion de­vices. Know the depth when­ev­er you go in­to any aquat­ic en­vi­ron­ment, like rivers or beach­es.”

Liv­ingston added, “Do not try to go in­to the wa­ter be­yond your swim­ming abil­i­ty. Peo­ple tend to take chances when they see wa­ter calm, and as I said, you have beach­es like Mac­queripe where you see wa­ter calm, the bot­tom drops, and you lose your foot­ing, and that’s it there.”