So where would you swim at the south end of the beach (bottom of this picture)? Well, the water looks pretty inviting until you realise that it's a very dangerous

There's a few lessons here. First, not all rips flow straight offshore. That's why I'm not a huge fan of the 'swim parallel to the beach' escape advice.

This is a classic view of a well developed channelised rip...you can't miss the dark gap. Its' too bad not all rips are this obvious. It all begins with an idea.

Once again, a little bit of elevation helps to spot rips and you should always watch the water for several minutes and try to spot rips before jumping in. Always.

In the spirit of the Olympic games, one of the most famous beaches in the world, Copacabana Beach gets the nod this month.

This image is quite amazing. It shows a rip current channel running along the beach from the bottom of the image at a strong angle before widening and turning straight offshore.

Look more closely and you can see this spiralling vortex quite a ways offshore, the remnants of what we call a 'rip pulse'.

This picture was sent to me by Clayton Jones, an ex-pat Australian living in San Diego and it shows the north end of Imperial Beach, San Diego after 4 months of El Nino weather and surf conditions.

There was a fairly big debate a few years ago about whether rips re-circulate within the surf zone (area of breaking waves) without going far offshore or whether they flow well beyond the breaking waves.

I don't know much about beaches in Israel other than that they obviously had some and that some early rip current studies were done there in the 1980's.

After 7 years of putting up Rip of the Month pictures it's about time that I showed rips from one of the more famous 'rip' beaches in the world, Narrabeen Beach on Sydney's northern beaches.

I use this beach a lot (mostly because it's where I live), but it's also like a rip factory. I have seen every type of rip there is on this beach so it's perfect for educational purposes.