guarding life
Lighthouse Beach. Ballina. Today.
You know how sometimes when you are walking along the sand, close to the shoreline on a good surfing day, waves a powerful six foot plus, sets close together, tide incoming and the wash all of a sudden is up to your knees. Then you have to stop to let it recede.
Lighthouse was closed today and up at the north end three youngsters were dodging about in the same shorebreak, none of them looking like they could swim. Two women sitting nearby, neither of them looking like they could swim either.
I stopped and watched the kids for a while, obeying the instinct. One minute they were knee deep in the shorebreak, then just as it happened to me earlier, a larger wave had them waist deep. Waist deep and the undertow pulling at them. The rip only metres away.
I stopped by the women, asked if the children were theirs, they said yes, I told them the sea was dangerous today and by the time I reached the clubhouse and turned back could see they were walking over to call them in.
Then I had a quiet word with the youth on lifeguard duty.
He was sitting up on the club apron. Oblivious.
’Mate,’ sez I, ‘this beach is closed, right?’
’Yeah he says.’
’So what are those kids doing in the water?’
He shrugged. Shrugged.
‘So how is it,’ I went on with some heat, ‘that I’m the one warning their mothers about the danger? Eh? Why am I doing your job?’
No response. The bloke’s dead from the neck up. And he’s the one on duty today.
petebowes.com 
i paddled a couple in one time they were almost done.i had the chick on the nose guy in the middle me in the back kicking we made it in.same thing clueless kid manning the tower.on a 6’10” hybrid fish.that was about 15 years ago.now it’s even worse with the insta tic toc brains.