The RNLI in Exmouth have announced a provisional date for the opening ceremony of their new Lifeboat station.
The date set is Saturday 6th of June.
Here is the computer generated image of what the new boat house will look like.
Image from Exmouth RNLI
Here is what it currently looks like.
Photo from Burts Kite cam!
Our Lifeguard hut will probably be just along the beach from the launching ramp.
The RNLI announced today that they are going to be running the Lifeguard service on some more new beaches this year.
Pembrokeshire Council in West Wales came across to the RNLI last year. This year Ceredigion Council also West Wales have requested the help of the RNLI.
The beaches at Borth, Clarach, Tresaith, Aberporth, Llangrannog, New Quay, Aberystwyth North and Aberystwyth South will all have RNLI Lifeguards patrolling them. Hopefully lots of the council Lifeguards from previous years will return to the service and be able to work well with the local clubs.
Check out the press release on the RNLI website here.
As a keen surfer and kayaker as well as a Lifeguard I like to keep an eye on the weather.
I use a few sites for long range forecasts and use a few sites for short range forecasts or actual conditions.
These are the long range sites I use
Actual conditions in Exmouth
http://www.nciexmouth.org.uk/web_camera.htm
Exmouth webcam
Local wind and kite surf shop with webcam and wind info.
http://www.edgewatersports.com/
However many forecast you look at it seems what weather/swell actual turns up is anyone’s guess!
Keep an eye on the webcams and you might catch a glimpse of Exmouth’s Lifeboats or us patrolling in the summer months.
Check out the RNLI Lifeboats, Lifeguards Life First campaig. http://www.rnli-lifefirst.org.uk/
One of the main publicity tools for this campaign was the Life First camper van.
Photo of Zoe Ball and the Life First Camper, from the RNLI website
Check out the RNLI Lifeboats, Lifeguards Life First campaign The. camper was taken to many big festivals and to the board masters surf competition in Newquay, Cornwall to raise funds for the RNLI Lifeboats and Lifeguard service.
We were lucky enough to have the van come and visit us at Lifeboat day in Exmouth last summer.
A intresting artical I found in the local newspaper. It makes intresting reading. Click here for the artical!
The difference between Constantine Beach and Exmouth is we don’t normally have big surf rolling in battering the beach. We do however have other hazards which can be equally as dangerous such as the constant tidal movement in the River Exe, the changing spits and sand bars and lots of boat traffic.
Busy days test lifeguard teams, you can spent all running at 110%. These are the days when you get home and crash out. Lifeguard teams have to work closely together.
There was one day on the beach last summer in Exmouth where the Lifeguards were dealing with a spinal incident on the sand dunes when a kite surfer needed rescuing, whilst both of these incidents are going on there were still lots of people in the water between the red and yellow flags who needed watching. Great communication keeps a Lifeguard team running and dealing with everything they come across.
A rescue board on the beach in its stand ready for a Lifeguard to grab it and head out for a recue!
On 30th January many people aranged SOS themed fundraising events for the RNLI. I heard of many diffrent events being run!
On the 30th the RNLI also realeased all the rescue information last year.
From the RNLI Website “RNLI lifeguards on 110 beaches in England and Wales dealt with 9,535 incidents, assisting 11,026 people.”
That is an amazing amount of people helped or even saved. Incidents can be first aid based or rescue based or both. Although in Exmouth we didn’t have quite as many rescues the 550 people rescued at Perranporth in Cornwall over this season we had our fair share though.
