. I first visited Sunshine as a backpacker way back in 1992 and remember getting fried by the sun and unable to swim because the water was full of gigantic blobs of jellyfish. It all begins with an idea.

This beach is situated on the west (Pacific Ocean) coast of Panama and is very similar to beaches (and rip currents) I've experienced in Costa Rica. It all begins with an idea.

This was developed with the help of Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA), Live Saving Victoria (LSV) and myself and it's a fantastic educational resource. It all begins with an idea.

Dreamtime is also not patrolled by lifeguards and has been the scene of several tragic drownings in recent years, often caused by rip currents. It all begins with an idea.

What factors impact your choice of decision about where to swim when you go the beach?

It recently occurred to me that one thing I always do to spot rips is to look down or up the beach because it’s easier to see rips from the side.

This month we’ve got a video which helps demonstrate flash rips really well, but it also raises a lot of questions.

Coalcliff is a steep beach known for its' strong backwash and while it doesn't have channelised rips between sandbanks very often, it does get rips, usually against the southern rock platform.

This is quite a famous rip current picture as it turns out. I took this in 2009 while on research sabbatical in Monterey, California where I was working with Professor Jamie MacMahan of the Naval Postgraduate School

Rainbow Beach is a fantastic long beach that literally extends from north of Noosa, QLD up to Fraser Island. It's backed by dunes of multi-coloured sands with varying degrees of oxidation giving it the Rainbow moniker

When it comes to rips, I usually say 'white is nice, green is mean', but that doesn't apply to flash rips, in fact it's the opposite.

This rip of the month is a little different as it's time to talk about how rips flow and how this can influence what you should do if you find yourself caught in a rip current.