A action packed day.

Today started off the same as the last few days. Weather wise it has been hot with very light winds, people wise the beaches have started off quite and slowly got busy towards 1600.

Early in the day we were contacted by Portland Coastguard to launch our RWC to search for a speed boat with 3 people and a dog on board sinking off Dawlish Warren. The exact location of the boat was unknown. The RWC was launched quickly and headed towards the end of the Warren opposite Exmouth docks to start searching.

The speed boat was nowhere to be seen. The three ocupants and dog had been rescued by passing boats as their boat sank. The boat sank just inside the inside the River Exe when it got tangled on a mooring line and pulled under by the large out going spring tide. The Lifeguard on the RWC searched the immediate area to make sure there was no one else in the water, then stood by waiting for Exmouth All Weather and Inshore Lifeboats. Once both Lifeboats were on scene and had removed the casulaties to take them to shore the RWC returned to the Lifeguard hut.

The middle part of the day concisted of lots of foot patrols, where we tried to talk to as many people as possible offering advise when necessary.

This afternoon we launched the RWC again to patrol, while the tide was at its strongest rushing in. The RWC patrols close to the shoreline along the full length of Exmouth beach. One of the best things about RWCs is that they can be used in very shallow water.

One long exteneded patrol towards Sandy bay was done to check for people who were unaware of the incoming tide. A family and dog had been cut off by the flood tide in the small bay between Exmouth and Sandy Bay. I landed the RWC on the beach and assisted the family and dog through the small waves and waist deep water back around towards Exmouth, were they were at no risk of being cut off by the tide.

It is important to check the tides if your going to explore the beaches and coastline and also observe the safety signs now found at most beaches.

The end is soon!

The peak season beaches and peak season Lifeguards finish on Sunday. The rest of us finish in a few weeks time. The summer has flown past. With the weather forecast good it might be a busy last weekend for Sandy bay.

Today the beach started off very quiet with the sea as calm as it can get, the water crystal clear, no wind and a bit of sun. Incidents wise we were very quiet. Tomorrow will hopefully be the same!

I have many pictures of events that happened throughout the season and pictures of the rest of our kit. I will endevour to upload these in a few weeks when we are finished on the beach. They should show a little more of what we do!

The end is soon!

The peak season beaches and peak season Lifeguards finish on Sunday. The rest of us finish in a few weeks time. The summer has flown past. With the weather forecast good it might be a busy last weekend for Sandy bay.

Today the beach started off very quiet with the sea as calm as it can get, the water crystal clear, no wind and a bit of sun. Incidents wise we were very quiet. Tomorrow will hopefully be the same!

I have many pictures of events that happened throughout the season and pictures of the rest of our kit. I will endevour to upload these in a few weeks when we are finished on the beach. They should show a little more of what we do!

A few pictures of our RWC click them to enlarge them!

A bit more about our rescue water craft, also known as a jet ski. This great piece of kit is made by Yamaha. The ski is a fantastic craft, it can be used to rescue people concious or unconcious and rescue those taking part in many diffrent activities on the water.

In two of the pictures you can see the sled attached to the back of the ski. This is where anyone that gets picked up by the RWC jumps aboard! It is also where the Lifeguard crew on the ski travel. We can have the ski in the water very quickly to people we see in trouble or when we launch because we have had a report of someone in trouble out of sight of our Lifeguard hut.

We have four people in our team of eight qualified to drive the ski and all are qualified to crew. A driver is allways on standby at the hut or close by should the ski need to be launched. This summer we have picked up quite a few swimmers out of the current in the main channel and picked up a few windsurfers but mainly we have rescued kitesurfers.

Bank Holiday Monday

The sun shone this afternoon. The beach was not as busy as it might have been if it had sunny all day!

We had a day of preventatives. Many patrols went out and lots of people chatted to all the Lifeguards. It was very quiet on the incidents front which is good!

Afraid my phone had stopped uploading pictures. I have taken lots of photos on my waterproof camera throughout the season and will upload some of these over the winter.

Lifeboat day.

Today was Lifeboat day in Exmouth.

The RNLI camper van was on display next to Exmouth ILB at the ILB station. Both were manned by RNLI lifeguards and Lifeboat Men all day.

Exmouth All Weather Lifeboat was alongside in Exmouth docks for the public to view it. Unfortunatly it was called away to tow in a large broken down speed boat off straight point around lunch time.

This afternoon the Rescue Water Craft jet-ski was launched to do a demonstration with the ILB. Two casualties were placed in the water. The casualties were being swept away by the outgoing tide. The public watching the display could all see how strong the currents can be in Exmouth and how important it is to swim and paddle between the red and yellow flags, which are placed in the safest part of the beach. The RWC and ILB were scrambled to rescue the casualties. Both casualties were recovered quickly and brought safely back ashore.

What will the weather be like this bank holiday who knows!

A normal day today! And Lifeboat day.

Today we were chatting while watching the people in the water and on the beach, we decided that today was “normal”.

It was a normal day for us on the beach for quite a few reasons. We had quite a few people on the beach and quite a few people in the water. We delt with a few minor first aids and launched the RWC to 3 people who had fallen off their jet ski in the middle of the channel and were drifting with the outgoing tide. The 3 people were quickly reunited with their jetski.

Tomorrow is Lifeboat day in Exmouth. The ALB is going to be moored up at the docks for people to look around it and the RNLI VW campervan will also be in Exmouth with RNLI Lifeguards giving out safety advise. There may also be some rescue demos to watch!

Sandy Bay Today

Sandy Bay Today

Originally uploaded by Joe Haines

11 o’clcok at Sandy Bay and the beach is filling up. Plenty of people already advised about swimming between the red and yellow flags.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

More rescues and assistances

Due to the consistent strong winds we have had lot and lots of kite surfers and windsurfers out.

With the large quantity of people out on the water its not a suprise that some of them had kit failures.

Over the past two days we have picked up two kite surfers and two windsurfers. One windsurfer had broken his boom and one kite surfer had broken his kite.

The other windsurfer collided with a small set of rocks, known as Conga rocks. (I’ve been lead to believe that they are called Conga rocks for good reason.) He was brought back to shore by the RWC with a driver and crew on board and the small cuts he got from the rocks were seen to back at the Lifeguard Hut.

The last kite surfer just got his lines tangled and could not get going again. The RWC picked him up aswell.

Most of this took place in the rain! Will we ever get any sunshine!

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I have pictures of a couple of the rescues but will have to wait to get to a computer to upload them.

Training with Exmouth ILB

This afternoon we trained with Exmouth Inshore Lifeboat. We set up a mock scenario of a kite surfer with a spinal injury on the sand bar, some 300 meters offshore.

We launched our RWC with a driver, crew, neck collar and spinal board. The 2 Lifeguards on the RWC got to the casualty and immobilised him. The ILB then made its way over to the scene. The tide was quickly coming in so we needed to move the casualty back to the beach.

The casualty was placed on the spinal board and moved in to the ILB. The RWC and ILB returned to the beach and we moved the casualty out of the Lifeboat up the beach to a safe location where we could wait for an ambulance.

This was the end of our excercise. We all agreed that training together was a good idea, and there is lots we can all learn off each other. Hopefuly we may get to train with the Lifeboat again next weekend.