This weekend in Exmouth

This weekend saw sevral large kite races take place in Exmouth organised by the BKSA (British Kite Surfing Association). Everything seemed to go well. We didn’t have to get involved in safety for the event as they had their own RWC and RIBs.

Other things that happened on the beach this weekend include a member of the public getting their Land Rover stuck in the sand and having to dig it out, we did some training with Exmouth Beach Rescue and lastly the sun came out for a while!

Tomorrow is the first day the full Exmouth and Sandy Bay team will be together. We will be doing some training before the team starts the peak season on Saturday.

Our view east.

Our view east.

Originally uploaded by Joe Haines

This is what we see from our hut if we look east!

Its quiet in the water today. No kite surfers yet!

Two school talks thismorning. Hopefully the message of swim between the red and yellow flags was well understood!
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Peak Season

Peak season starts soon. This means a few more new recruits for our Lifeguard team to help cover Sandy Bay and Exmouth for the rest the summer.

Lifeguards will be on Sandy Bay from the 5th July. Rember if you go to the beach, go to a Lifeguarded beach and swim and paddle between the red and yellow flag! Don’t enter the water if you see red flags!

32 kites

Strong winds bring out the kite surfers in Exmouth.

At one point on sunday I counted 32 kites in the air with many more on the beach getting ready to go out or packing down.

We worked closely with the Exmouth Beach Rescue Volunteer Club and the Exmouth RNLI Inshore Lifeboat throughout the day. In total 4 kites were assisted. All just needed a bit of a helping hand to get back to the beach when their kites wouldn’t relaunch from the water due to twisted lines or folding kites.

Kite surfers can normaly get their kites airboune again after they have landed in the water due to a large inflaitable boom which makes the kites float.

what do lifeguards do when its raining!

It is fair to say that beaches are normaly quiet when it rains! So what do the Lifeguards do while the beach is quiet?

Whilst keeping up regular patrols on the beach we fit in some training. Normaly this is fitness based. Running, swimming or board paddling. Its important for us to keep fitness levels up as you never know when you might have to swim a long way, or run the length of the beach!

Nice and quiet today.

A nice quiet day on the beach today.

A joint beach safety talk for some school children with Exmouth Inshore Lifeboat crew early in the day. More preventative work!

Then this afternoon the stand up paddleboarding club came down in force. Lots of people trying the sport for the first time today after the recent front page newspaper coverage!

Another weeks gone by.

Another week on the beach has gone by.

This past week has reinforced to me and the team of Lifeguards on Exmouth Beach the huge importance of preventative actions.

Just by talking to a person and offering them simple advice such as swim and paddle between the red and yellow flags can make the persons day at the beach far more enjoyable.

Parts of Exmouth beach are “red flagged”.  Red flags mean dont eneter the water .  In Exmouth this is to do with the strong tidal flow in and out the River Exe.

Moving people who are swimming and paddling from the red flagged area to the the safer red and yellow flagged area greatly reduces the persons chances of needing assistance or rescue.  This I would say our whole team has made 100s of preventative actions, possibly some of them life saving ones.

Blenheim Tri.

Blenheim Triahtlon.

Herts Canoe Lifeguards attended the Blenheim Triathlon last weekend and lifeguarded for the 6000+ swimmers taking part in the races.

Reports back say the event went swimmingly! With all the Lifeguards doing very well!

Looking forward to the London Triathlon now.  75 canoe Lifeguard on duty the second weekend in August with 13000+ swimmers!

On a computer at last!

Today is my day off this week and I have finally managed to get to a computer to sort out mobile blogging!

Fingers crossed I should now be able to upload pictures form my mobile straight to this wordpress.

Will test it in a minute!