January 2010 (ROTM#13) Constantine Bay, Cornwall, UK

I visited the University of Plymouth in the UK in December and Professor Gerd Masselink, a good friend and one of the world's leading coastal geomorphologists, took me on a day tour of part of the Cornwall coast including Perranporth, Fistral Beach, and Newquay. I was blown away. Even though it was a miserable day, the coastline was stunning. Mind-boggingly so. The variety was amazing and it was some of the most beautiful coastal scenery I've ever seen. And there was surf. I knew there was surf in the UK, but it still seemed bizarre to see so many surf shops in these old Cornish towns, not to mention a ton of surfers catching some clean 2 m + winter swell.

 The UK also has a rip problem. Not in the winter, because it's far too cold to swim. It's probably far too cold to swim in the summer as well, but hordes of people do and many of them end up getting stuck in rips where they are rescued by RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) lifeguards. These pictures are from Constantine Bay, rated as one of the most dangerous swimming beaches in the UK in terms of rips. The beaches and rips are a lot different because the tides are so large. Tide range along this coast can be up to 6 m or more which means the shoreline shifts pretty rapidly between low and high tide. The rips sit in distinct channels and only really fire up over a short period of time around low to mid-tide when the water depths are just right for wave breaking and water getting in the rip channels. For this reason, there are often "mass rescue" events where a ton of people get in trouble at the same time. Lifeguards are always shifting the red and yellow flags around as well as sheperding swimmers and waders around with the changing conditions.

top The picture with the sign and the arrow shows a rip channel almost exposed at low tide. It's deeper, darker, and very narrow. The bottom picture shows Gerd standing next to it. It's really not a big deal, but as the tide rises, water depth increases, more waves break on the bars and water starts to flow into the channel. There it gets squeezed and starts flowing faster and if you are not paying attention or aren't a good swimmer, off you go!

One of the best coastal scientists ever - Gerd Masselink