Drowning doesn't look like Drowning

Very useful post

 

Sat on the beach last night, we watched a bloke go out on one of those stand up boards with a paddle. No life jacket or radio. He went out until he was a dot on the horizon.

Now if he'd fallen off that far out, we didn't rate his chances of getting back on it, what with the shock of the cold water.

We felt obliged to wait till he came back in. No one else seemed to be keeping a look out and the life guards were off duty.

 

I saw someone on one of those boards too Zigs, going out from the gare (the mouth of the Tees). I couldn't see if he had any emergency gear on, but I didn't think it would do him much good if he had. The tide was in, which meant he couldn't have been any dafter because when the tide sets off back out again, it adds to the already significant prevailing current that goes out in a great big arc sweeping generally out to see, then southwards.

I didn't wait for him to come back. I figured there's no point really. If he can get back in, then he's fine anyway. If he gets into difficulty, he wont be landing on the same beach, but most likely one 10 miles down the coast instead.

 

I must admit, the Darwin Awards did occur to me.

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

I did manage to "moderate" a few kids who were walking off the beach just about to leave all the empty cans & bottles they'd been throwing around