Old-timers fear Baylys' rising toll

Baylys Beach is so changeable that holes and rips can come and go in a day. Picture / Richard Robinson

Neville Searle has seen a '38 Plymouth smashed to pieces by the surf at Baylys Beach.

He was just a "young fella" the day it happened, but the 68-year-old - who has spent his life swimming the treacherous beaches of Northland's west coast - still remembers the incident clearly.

"The boot was off and the bonnet was done in. It was just the force of the sea. If it can do that to a car, what can it do to your body?"

These days, niggling arthritis prevents the former farmer, dairy factory worker and power board employee from taking to the surf, but he watches the sea change constantly on his twice-daily strolls along the beach.

Rips and holes can come and go in the course of a day, he says, while southwesterly winds only exacerbate the dangers.

Two people have drowned at Baylys in the course of a week. The latest, Paparoa sharemilker Alexander Stewart, 46, got caught in a rip and pulled out to sea while his wife and three daughters attended a festival on the beach.

The drowning is no surprise to Searle. He is stunned more deaths haven't occurred, and fears others will die before the summer is over.

From the sand he has watched as 5-year-old swim alone in a "sweepy" sea, while other visitors to the beach are "putting things like boogie boards above their personal safety".

He has tried to tell beach-goers to keep their children out of the water at low tide, but has been told to mind his own business.

"They just think 'know-all old bastard'," he reckons.

Ever since the waters of Baylys Beach snatched 16 souls from the wreck of the French corvette Alcmene in 1851, it has been trying to take more, Searle says.

Things were different when he was a youngster.

"When I was little, we swam as a group. The group saved one another."

Alan Hobson is another Dargaville local who knows to treat Baylys Beach with respect.

"When the tide turns, it roughs up. You have to know the sea. You don't go in there if you don't know the tides.

"There's a lot more people coming in here from Auckland ... they are absolutely unaware."

It is a good net fishing spot, with mullet and flounder in abundance. But a one-off wave or treacherous tide can drag a fisherman out.

That's exactly what happened to a 35-year-old Hikurangi man on January 29. Kevan Moore was drowned when he became caught in a rip and pulled out to sea while net fishing.

Neither Searle nor Hobson is optimistic much can be done to improve safety at Baylys. A flag system is no good if people are going to disappear miles up the beach to swim, says Searle, and tide clocks would be of limited use when visitors are hell-bent on taking a dip.

School holiday patrols could be an idea, but professionals would have to be brought in.

There was previously a surf lifesaving club at the beach, but it died out and "you can't even get a cricket team in the town now", he says.

A group of young Baylys Beach surfers announced this week a plan to start their own lifesaving operation in the wake of the drownings, but a cynical Hobson has his doubts.

"You know, the young ones nowadays, they are uncommitted about most things."

Surf Lifesaving Northern Region development officer Dean Storey says Baylys - and nearby Glinks Gully - are typical of most west coast beaches.

New Zealand's western coastline is directly exposed to ocean swells making their way north from the Roaring 40s.

These swells, given extra momentum by the prevailing westerly wind, then strike a coastline rough with rocks, creating hazards for swimmers, fishermen and boaties.

All the energy created by the waves must "dissipate back out to sea", and it does so in the form of rips - which have been responsible for both the Baylys drownings - Storey says.

For boaties, the west coast presents hazards seldom experienced on the other side of the island, says Coastguard operations director Dean Lawrence.

"The biggest issue for the west coast is that the boats that go out there either have to cross a bar, or launch off a beach - which is a surf beach.

"Once at sea, the only point of safety is back through that bar or back up that beach."

Unlike the east coast, there are no islands behind which a boatie can ride out a storm, he says.

Water Safety New Zealand figures show the average number of drownings has been falling decade-by-decade since the 1980s, and project manager Matt Claridge would like it to stay that way.

It won't if - as Searle and Hobson insist is the case at Baylys - visitors to unfamiliar beaches fail to listen to the advice of locals.

Baylys Beach is a go-ahead little spot. A number of bed and breakfast outfits can be found in the township, and an 80-plus section subdivision is being excavated.

That could mean hundreds of newcomers moving to the area and eager to get out for a swim.


Death toll

Drownings nationally
* Year to January 3013
* January 2005 16
* Total for 2005 104

Yearly averages
* 1980s 182
* 1990s 143
* 2000-2004 126
Source: Water Safety NZ