Lack of Respect for the Sea

[boatman61]

Meco: jovem que sobreviveu ligou para o 112 quando saiu do mar > TVI24

[GILow]

I don't know about this particular incident, but we had a strange tragedy here in Adelaide just near our home, where an African family walked out to a breakwater at low tide and became trapped by the rising tide. I think four or five drowned from memory.

It is so shocking because as an Australian who went to an Australian school, I know I could have swum that distance by the time I was five, so the thought of a family with fully grown adults drowning seems incomprehensible. To this day when I walk down the beach and look at the breakwater I just cannot imagine it as dangerous.

I am not criticising them here, I am just pointing out how our culture prepares us, or not, for the sea and what it can do. Here in Australia, kids are prepared for the beach from their first days at kindergarten, regular beach trips with the school, etc. We still have far too many backyard pool deaths, but so many of those are caused by faulty pool fencing.

What a tragedy, a night with friends on the beach watching the waves should be something remembered fondly for your adult years. I know I sure treasure my memories of such nights.

Matt

[roverhi]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

I think if you check several tourists are lost every year in the Hawaiian Islands where the 3 sigma waves snatch them from the beach and take them out to sea.

Yes, we lose a couple of tourists and even a local or two to the winter waves every year. It's all the fault of the camera manufacturers. People try and get a picture with the waves in the background. "Honey, step back a little, a little more, a little-- where did you go!!!!!. It's that occasional wave that is way bigger than the prevailing ones that get them. Of course, anyone who gets near the shore when the waves are running 20' is either stupid or better be a very very good water person.

Entirely off topic, it seems to be sharks culling the unwary currently. Something like 14 attacks this year with two fatalities. That's way way above the norm. Rumor it's because the Sea Turtle population is exploding. Even talk about allowing fishing/hunting them again. Sharks, being the near sighted creatures that they are, they have a hard time telling the difference between a swimmer on a boogie board and the real thing until they take a bite.

Aloha

[Blue Skye]

Tragic story, heart goes out to the parents

[Mike OReilly]

My heart goes out to these lost souls. It is a tragic story, but one that is repeated all too often.

In my area on Lake Superior we see the cost of foolishness or arrogance every few years, usually in the form of a couple of dead young people. Nature doesn't care. It will kill you if you are silly, foolish, arrogant or simply unlucky.

This is a horrible tragedy, but it does underscore the necessity to always respect the Sea -- respect Nature. If you don't, she'll kill ya.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Snore

They don't teach common sense in school.

But a tip of the cap for "doing the right thing".

You can not teach common sense. It pretty much is a generic thing.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Meco: jovem que sobreviveu ligou para o 112 quando saiu do mar > TVI24

For the Anglophones among us:
Google Translate

[DumnMad]

For some, standing on the beach is as dangerous as cruising the oceans.

[snort]

Sometimes your number is just up.
I'm thinking of a family that took a hike in Buena Vista, Colorado a few months ago. Popular trail for a weekend walk, but they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
No one's fault, but tragic just the same.

[hpeer]

Michener wrote about a similar incident in his book "Hawaii."

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

I don't know about your beaches there, but short of a tsunami, I don't understand how a wave could be that big. Especially on some of the beaches I've been to where you hang out a hundred or two hundred feet from the water.

Here in the northern California region (San Francisco and on up), people walk along the steeply sloped beaches, often during the winter time, and make that fatal mistake of getting too close or trying to get their dog out of the surf and then can't make it out themselves. Google YouTube and "Mavericks rogue wave." In Florida, where wave dynamics tend to be calmer, undertow used to claim several beach goers every year, but if one knows what an undertow is, it should not be a problem to escape. I think the OP makes a good general point -- lack of awareness of the natural environmental conditions can get you killed. Anywhere.

[boatman61]

Not many years back something like 90 immigrants died in the Bristol Channel... they were gathers of shellfish who were sent out at low water to harvest the flats... unfortunately someone got the tides wrong or something... they all got cut off by the fast moving waters and drowned..

[SVRapture40]

I just love people that call other people stupid and such. Well, maybe "love" is not the right word. But I am absolutely certain that the people judging these obviously "stupid" people have never made any foolish mistakes themselves.

[Eyeback]

What some may not realize, is that the waters at Sesimbra are freezing cold. I tried swimming there one summer and lasted about 20 seconds. I can't imagine how anyone could survive there in the middle of the night in the dead of winter.
Beautiful place to visit.

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by SVRapture40

I just love people that call other people stupid and such. Well, maybe "love" is not the right word. But I am absolutely certain that the people judging these obviously "stupid" people have never made any foolish mistakes themselves.

Now, dont be foolish...