So, me and my girlfriend headed down to playa Sosua Saturday and hit the shore, popsicle floaties in tow.
The water looked fine to me, waves a little big but nothing that looked crazy – so in I went. We promptly mounted our floaties, I slapped my arm on hers to keep us together and we both closed our eyes at moments they may have been open by I was face down and not really looking around, just taking in the sun and relaxation. We were floating around in the shoreline – where we started the water was maybe knee to waist deep.
Not 5 minutes later, no exaggeration I looked up because my girlfriend said she was taking on water and thought her floatie had a leak (which indeed it did). To my surprise we were all the way past the boats!!!! We were both like WTF?? Omgggggggg!!! How did we get here so fast!!! I felt nothing!!!!
She says to me, no problem, lets just start swimming back. Nope – swimming with all my might we just kept getting pushed further out. It was like we got pushed out of the water with one current and into another but to get back would mean swimming against the current.
2 party catamarans passed. My girlfriend raised her arm and yelled help – and they all raised their classes to cheers LOL (well not really) I simply don’t think they could here what she way saying and thought she was waving. We were literally eff’d.
I tried propelling with my arms. I tried dismounting and using my legs to kick – the progress against the energy being expended was not even close to comparison.
Strangely we came across floating debree and one long rope that wasn’t attached to anything. We the debree and rope used it to pull, propel, pull propel. Then we finally made it to the outlaying rope that blocks the swimmers from where the boats are and used that to pull further.
Then that one ran out. Then it was another while again of swimming.
It took 5 minutes to be pulled out and over 2 hours to get back in. I was exhausted and that literally went from relaxing, to kind of funny, to terrorizing really fast.
Take care when floating in the shore line. Don’t think you will feel a fast pull to know you are caught in a rip tide. I think this post is especially important for parents because there were a lot of kids in the water that day unsupervised and the conditions may not always be as they appear. A child would have been toast in the situation we found ourselves in.
I am not sure if any others here have any advice in a situation like the one I experienced (besides the obvious which is not floating on your floatie popsicle with your eyes closed) about how to identify rip tide conditions in Sosua Bay or how to swim out of one.
The water looked fine to me, waves a little big but nothing that looked crazy – so in I went. We promptly mounted our floaties, I slapped my arm on hers to keep us together and we both closed our eyes at moments they may have been open by I was face down and not really looking around, just taking in the sun and relaxation. We were floating around in the shoreline – where we started the water was maybe knee to waist deep.
Not 5 minutes later, no exaggeration I looked up because my girlfriend said she was taking on water and thought her floatie had a leak (which indeed it did). To my surprise we were all the way past the boats!!!! We were both like WTF?? Omgggggggg!!! How did we get here so fast!!! I felt nothing!!!!
She says to me, no problem, lets just start swimming back. Nope – swimming with all my might we just kept getting pushed further out. It was like we got pushed out of the water with one current and into another but to get back would mean swimming against the current.
2 party catamarans passed. My girlfriend raised her arm and yelled help – and they all raised their classes to cheers LOL (well not really) I simply don’t think they could here what she way saying and thought she was waving. We were literally eff’d.
I tried propelling with my arms. I tried dismounting and using my legs to kick – the progress against the energy being expended was not even close to comparison.
Strangely we came across floating debree and one long rope that wasn’t attached to anything. We the debree and rope used it to pull, propel, pull propel. Then we finally made it to the outlaying rope that blocks the swimmers from where the boats are and used that to pull further.
Then that one ran out. Then it was another while again of swimming.
It took 5 minutes to be pulled out and over 2 hours to get back in. I was exhausted and that literally went from relaxing, to kind of funny, to terrorizing really fast.
Take care when floating in the shore line. Don’t think you will feel a fast pull to know you are caught in a rip tide. I think this post is especially important for parents because there were a lot of kids in the water that day unsupervised and the conditions may not always be as they appear. A child would have been toast in the situation we found ourselves in.
I am not sure if any others here have any advice in a situation like the one I experienced (besides the obvious which is not floating on your floatie popsicle with your eyes closed) about how to identify rip tide conditions in Sosua Bay or how to swim out of one.