The Rip

The Rip

You never know how much someone means to you until you are faced with the thought of losing them.
This is something that I learnt the hard way.

I was twelve years old and I was enjoying my first summer in New Zealand. Mum had let me
spend some of the holiday with my friend Atawhai, who was visiting her Nana and their Marae
up in the Bay of Islands. We had been camping out in front of her Nana’s house for two weeks
and I was having an incredible time. Atawhai had taught me how to row, to fish and catch kaimoana
and we had spent a lot of time trying out all of her cousins games on the Playstation. I was enjoying
it so much that my family decided to drive up and spend the last few days of the holiday with me.

When Mum, Tom and my siblings reached Atawhai’s Nana’s place, they decided it would be nice
to take Atawhai out for the day. They chose a beach about half an hour away as it was somewhere
Atawhai hadn’t been before. We bought a packed lunch and found a place along the long sandy
beach. The tide was out so Tom suggested that we eat and play on the beach before we went
swimming later on. I watched the calm turquoise water fifty metres from us and longed to dive in
because it was a scorcher of a day.

An hour later I asked Tom if it was okay for Charlie, Atawhai and I to look for Pipi’s by the ocean.
I was really keen to show Charlie what I had learnt about Kai Moana. As we were twins, it was
pretty rare for me to learn something that he didn’t know! We were pretty successful and Tom came
down with some of the girls buckets for us to put the Pipis in.

“It’s alright if you want to go in for a swim now” said Tom, smiling as he looked at our haul “I’ll
bring your sisters down in a few minutes”.

“Thanks Tom” I replied. Tom was a pretty cool guy.

We had our toggs on underneath our clothes, so we were able to jump into the water pretty quickly.
Charlie and I felt pretty confident in the water, we had been champion swimmers back home and
Tom was taking us to junior life saving lessons before we arrived in New Zealand. I dove straight
into the surf, cherishing the feel of the cold salty water on my skin; it felt like heaven in the heat
of the day.

Charlie and I decided to swim a little deeper. We loved having competitions to see who could
swim the fastest or hold their breath the longest. Atawhai decided to wait in the shallows for our
three younger sisters. She was the youngest in her family so she enjoyed spending time with them.
Charlie and I got so caught up in our competitions that we forgot that she was still waiting there after
a while. We didn’t realise that we were moving further away from her and the shore.

Suddenly, Charlie disappeared from my vision. When I turned around to look for him I saw
treading water about ten metres from where he had last been. He was reaching his arms high up
into the air as if he was grabbing for something that was floating just above the surface.

“Cut it out Charlie, you’re not funny” I laughed, but Charlie did not reply. His face grew pale and
he began to move faster. It looked like he was climbing a steep imaginary staircase just under the
water.

I turned around to look at Atawhai and spotted the panic in her eyes. We both recognised that
Charlie was drowning, although I refused to believe it. How could my brother, the champion
swimmer drown? It didn’t make any sense.

“He’s caught in a rip current” shouted Atawhai “ I’ll call for help”

I looked back at Charlie in desperation, remembering our life saving lessons. I knew that if I
swam out to grab Charlie he would push me down and drown me too.

As Atawhai waved frantically back at our family, Tom and my little sisters waved back. They
didn’t understand what was happening so Tom began to bring my sisters down for their swim.
Atawhai had a tough decision to make. She turned back to look at Charlie, who was growing paler
and continuing to panic. We hadn’t learnt about rips before so he did not understand what was
happening to him.

Atawhai dove in and swam to where I was treading water. She told me that we needed to calm
Charlie down and that he needed to let the rip take him further out to sea. I didn’t hear what she
told him, but somehow she managed to get through to him and he began drifting out. We swam
closer to Charlie and pretty soon we were being pulled out by the rip as well. I was pretty scared,
but I knew if I followed Atawhai’s instructions and kept calm I would be okay. I wasn’t so sure
about Charlie though.

We were swept out for several minutes before Atawhai gave her next instruction. We swam
sideways so that we were following the coastline and kept going until we could no longer feel the
pull of the rip. It felt like we had been swimming for hours and I knew that it was adrenaline that
was keeping me going. I kept glancing over at Charlie to make sure that he was okay. Atawhai made
sure that we didn’t swim too fast for him as she knew he would be pretty tired.

Finally we were able to swim back into the shore. Charlie collapsed as soon as he reached the sand.
Tom ran out to us, he was angry at first, because he thought that we had swam out that far on
purpose, but he soon knew something was wrong when he saw Charlie. It didn’t take long to
explain to him what had happened and his anger turned to concern pretty quickly.

That evening we returned to the campsite where my family were staying. Charlie had been checked
out by a doctor and given the all clear and we had learnt a valuable lesson about rips. Mum decided
to cook up the Pipi’s we had caught, despite being told by Atawhai that they wouldn’t be ready.
Once again, Atawhai was right and they were still pretty sandy after being cooked, but we didn’t
care. We were so relieved to have Charlie home safe and I had never felt so glad to have a friend
like Atawhai.