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Puerto Rican Beach Story

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Wispy clouds scudded across blue Puerto Rican sky as the woman entered the water to cool off. 10 steps into the water the bottom disappeared. Surprised, she swam to the surface and began to swim back to shore. To her dismay she found herself being pulled out to sea despite her efforts.

The current ran, as it normally does from right to left down the beautiful Puerto Rican beach. As the farthest point on the left side, in front of a beautiful 4 star resort, there was a rock groin and breakwater that extended out into the ocean. Just like in Galveston, there is always a rip current by the rocks.

Suddenly, as the woman was pulled near the rocks, she hit a turbulent area. A wave broke over her head. Coughing and sputtering she made it back to the surface, but she’d choked on some water and found it hard to breathe. Panic gripped her as she realized she couldn’t make it back, and she was disoriented by the rough sea. She thought about her children and husband up in the hotel room. She remembered a load of laundry that she’d left in the dryer back in her New Jersey home, and then wondered why that would occur to her. The realization that she would not survive this event hit her like a punch to the gut. She struggled harder despite having trouble breathing. She quickly tired and felt impossibly heavy. She started slipping under water.

The resort offered all kinds of amenities, but the main draw was that it sits right on a very beautiful beach. The designers and investors thought about every little detail so their guests would have the ultimate experience. Every little detail but one. It sits right in front of a permanent rip current, and rip currents are the cause of 80% of ocean rescues (and likely ocean drownings). They didn’t plan for a beach safety program for their guests. Like many resorts around the world, this one was placed on a beautiful beach without thought to the safety of the beach itself.

Just as the woman slipped beneath the surface strong hands grabbed her. She found herself floating on a ratty old boogie board as a man yelled in Spanish and kicked her back to shore. Upon arriving to safety the man walked off and she sat down numbly. After a time she looked around and saw the man selling coconuts to tourists out of a shopping carts. Behind him under a bench she saw an old sleeping bag.

This beach sees about 10 drownings a year, usually rich tourists. The man selling coconuts averages 5 rescues a day. Partly because of the success of Galveston’s beaches, I’m part of a small team from the United States Lifesaving Association working up a proposal to combine private sector funding with governmental management of a beach patrol there. Until then, our hero, who is 62 years old, will hopefully be hard at work…

 

Image by cogito ergo imago.

50 Years

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The United States Lifesaving Association (USLA) is America’s non-profit open water lifesaving organization. They provide certification standards for beach and lake guards, public education material, publish statistical information, oversee lifesaving sport, reward heroic acts, advocate for drowning reduction in open water, and much more. Last week the 50th anniversary of the present form of the organization was held in Huntington Beach, California, along with the biannual board of directors meeting and educational conference.

Lifesaving in the United States originated in the northeast and many older coastal communities, including Galveston had life houses staffed by the US Lifesaving Service in the late 1800s. In fact, here in Galveston, we go back at least as far as 1875. But California was an appropriate venue because the immediate roots for the USLA came from a west coast based organization. A few forward thinking  individuals made trips around the US  promoting the concept of one group in the US that could oversee open water lifeguarding. They found fertile ground here in the likes of Jim McCloy, Vic Maceo, and Joe Max Taylor who saw the value of a modern, professionally run lifeguard service in a beach town that relies so heavily on tourism.

In 1957 a group of US mainland and Hawaiian lifeguards went to Australia to compete in their national lifeguard championships. Their names read like a who’s who of the history of lifeguarding in the US. Duke Kahanameka (introduced surfing to the mainland and other parts of the world), Greg Noll (one of the pioneers of big wave surfing),  and Bob Burnside (inventor of the hard plastic rescue can, world champion body surfer, LA County Lifeguard Chief). They had 120,000 spectators for the event and the US team did remarkably well. Additionally, they showed off the balsa surf board/rescue board and the rescue can. Up to that point, the Aussies had been using a heavier board and had been swimming a line out to victims. Both new innovations spread like wildfire in an aquatically conscious culture like Australia. Three of the original team members, now in their 80’s were present and a video of the original footage was shown. As you would imagine, the stories in the bar afterwards were pretty thick!

One thing that was really nice was that the whole event really promoted the commonalities that lifeguards and lifeguard organization share. Despite the decades this diverse group worked, or the part of the country, everyone seemed to be aware that although each areas has its own unique challenges there are common threads that run through the entire profession.

As always I was happy to get home. I drove across the causeway feeling like part of the overarching lifeguard family. But then I saw the seawall and knew only a Texas guard would have any clue how to work in the huge piles seaweed that blanketed the beach. Our maintenance crews are taking care of it and things will look good soon, but either way, there’s no place like home!