Happy Christmas and a hapy New Year

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.

What better thing can you think of to do on Christmas day than to go for a swim in the sea in Exmouth.  This what hundreds of people do every Christmas Day in Exmouth. Check out the photographs here!

Lifeguarding Video

There are quite a few videos showing RNLI Lifeguards on Youtube. Some have been officially released by the RNLI.

Here is one I enjoyed.  It was filmed in Cornwall at Perranporth Beach.

It only shows some of what Lifeguards do while training, arguably the more octane filled elements.

Lifeguard applications, why would you want to do that!

You can now apply for summer 2009 Beach Lifeguard jobs with the RNLI.

You need to hold a valid Beach Lifeguard award for the full duration of the 2009 season.

Descriptions of the areas the RNLI offer a Lifeguard service and the dates they operate can be found here.

And the application process can be started here.

While we are one the beach Lifeguarding quite a lot of people ask how they can become a Lifeguard or if there are jobs available. Normally when the season starts all the jobs are filled so those wanting a job have to wait until the next year to hopefully work on the beach. That leaves the other question of how do you become a Lifeguard. Personally I did a intensive Lifeguard course in Cornwall. These normally take the format of a 6 day course with the last day being an assessment. The other way in which you can become a Lifeguard is to train weekly with your local surf lifesaving club.

Being a Beach Lifeguard is very rewarding; in my opinion it is by far the best summer job you can do. You get to meet a huge number and a wide variety of people, you work with many different agencies and authorities and face challenges that you wouldn’t in any other job.  You get to spend every day you work outdoors, the sea and beach are your work place and your Lifeguard Hut is your office. OFcourse there are days when it chucks it down with rain and you feel like your presence on the beach is not that valuable but on the flip side there are the ooooober busy hot days where you don’t stop for even a split second and its obvious you are needed on the beach.

Another reason to work as an RNLI Lifeguard is you get to work for the biggest and best rescue charity there is.

Lots of visitors, but maybe we would of had more.

I heard today that we had around 89000 Visitors to the Beach in Exmouth last summer.

The picture below shows Exmouth beach starting to get busy one day back in June.

Although we had busy days I think the weather kept us from having continuously busy days.  If we had a really hot summer maybe we would of had more visitors.  I dont know what the long term forecasts are for next summer, but not sure if I would trust them anyway.

Teignbridge

The RNLI and Teignbridge Council announced today that after a year of negotiations the RNLI would be taking over the running of the beach lifeguard service on Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren Beaches.

Hopefully there will be plenty of Lifeguards to cover the beaches with the RNLI. I know that a Beach Lifeguard course was run back in October in Teignmouth to try and get more local people qualified to work on the beach.

This is a great opportunity for the Lifeguard service on both beaches to flourish, creating closer working relationships with both local clubs at Dawlish and Teignmouth and with the Lifeboats at Teignmouth and Exmouth. Hopefully lives will be saved through dedicated prevention work, and should it be necessary reactive Lifeguarding.

See the full press release here about the RNLI Lifeguard service in Teignmouth and Dawlish at

http://rnli.org.uk/press

Teignmouth and Dawlish beaches will fall under the managment of East Devon RNLI Lifeguarding.  This will be a great little area with Sandy Bay, Exmouth, Dawlish and Teignmouth.

Body surfing

Body surfing is the skill of swimming in to a wave and surfing on your chest back in to the beach. It is a useful skill to have enabling you to quickly get back to the beach.  A description of the skill is even printed in the NARS Beach Lifeguard qualification manual produced my SLSGB.

You have to be careful while bodysurfing making sure you don’t get driven down in to the sea bed on to your head by the wave.

Here are a couple of pics that kind of show the sequence of body surfing! Most are of me, one shows one of my RNLI Lifeguard colleagues.

1. You have to swim out.  In the picture below you can just seem my legs as I am ducking under a wave.

2. Looking for a wave to catch, then taking a couple of front crwal strokes.

3. One more stroke then head down and arms out infront.  You start to plane with the wave.

4. Heads down arms out.  Making sure you dont get drilled in to the sea bed! Hold your breath. You can just make out my head and hands!

5. You can make out my hands in the white water.  Still holding your breath you ride the wave up the beach.

Once up the beach you have to pick yourself up before the next waves catches you and tries to pull you back down in to the shore break.

In all honesty this skill is not one that is used frequently on our beach.  From this summer I only have one memory of using it in anger.

I was training in the water swimming from one end of the red and yellow flags to the other.  I was called out of the water over our PA system by one of the other Lifeguards.  We needed to launch the RWC to a incident.  I swam a couple of strokes in towards the beach then caught a wave up on my chest all the way up the beach, a short run back to the hut to kit up with buoyancy aid and helmet then two of us launch the RWC More info on our RWC here and few pics here.