How to Swim in the Ocean

Video Transcript

PHILIP TORIELLO: Hi. This is Philip Toriello, and this is how to swim in the ocean. For the general beach goer, the best thing to do is to always recognize where the lifeguard station is at. Set your stuff in and around the lifeguard station, and when you go out in the water, make sure that you're in the front and continually gauging where you're at. Keep yourself within a certain range of lifeguard stations, so the lifeguard can always see you, and so you can always see the lifeguard. Another way is to just know your limits and boundaries. Never go swimming for the buoys. If you're not an experienced swimmer who's doing like workout type swimming, make sure that you're not going out to buoys or pushing your limits. Some things to pay attention to when open water swimming include beach signs. These will usually indicate what types of marine life are present at that particular beach, any sort of beach hazards or ocean hazards that might be present at what times of the day, and also the times that the lifeguards are on duty. These are all very important aspects when you're going to be checking out a new beach. Also, like we talked about before, you want to keep that lifeguard tower in your sights. If it's not in your sight, then you're very likely not in the sight of the lifeguards. So please keep that in mind whenever you're swimming. A good way to check that is by taking a few strokes, popping your head up and making sure that that tower is always within your sight. Another thing that I want to remind you about is to let the lifeguard on duty know exactly what your intended swim course is and approximately what time you'll be back. This way, they have accountability for the swimmers that out there doing their courses, doing their workouts, and if you don't report back to them when you're done, then they're going to call a search and rescue team and or get the proper authorities notified to go out and find you.