Ron Lane
For one branch of our frontline essential service workers, the lifeguards and lifesavers at Noosa’s Main Beach, the New Year weekend, will certainly be one to remember. With big surf hitting the Queensland beaches, thus leaving the lifeguards and lifesavers no alternative but to declare a large majority of them closed, Noosa, because of the protection provided by mother nature’s First and Second points of the National Park, Main Beach was open all day Saturday.
However, Sunday morning, saw Main Beach closed till 10.30am. It was then, with the overnight big swells starting to subside, that club captain Roger Aspinall was able to open Main Beach to the general public. The surf was still big but with the patrols shifting the flags right up into a safer area, the corner of Main Beach, they were able to open.
With the weekend crowds peaking at an estimated 5000-plus, the patrols were kept busy.
“The team work between our volunteer lifesavers and the lifeguards has never been better. Add to this the number of our clubbies who volunteered to support the rostered patrols by putting in extra hours was incredible, and with the big crowds, particularly on Sunday, we needed them all,” said the club captain.
However, for veteran lifeguard Adam McKane and new chum Gia Lorenston the New Year’s celebrations started at Main Beach on New Year’s Eve at 6.30 pm and went through till 2am.
“Up till 1am we had about 2000 people on and around the beach area and from then on, they started to drift home. They were generally well behaved and we had no major incidents,” said McKane.
But for the Noosa Club captain, his New Year’s Day, started at 5.45am and just as well it did. Just minutes later, two people were injured on the rock wall at the end of Main Beach and two ambulance teams were required. Both were conveyed to hospital.
“I had started early as I felt that we were in for a big day. As it turned out I was right.”
Then in mid- morning another man was washed on to the rocks at Dolphin Point after being rescued by surfers. He was attended to by an off-duty lifeguard and helicopter crewman . He was then stretchered to National Park, placed on a quad bike and eventually conveyed to hospital by ambulance. At Main Beach from approximately 11am till 2pm, two jet ski patrols and Wave Runner18 were kept busy with an estimated 50-60 rescues. There were also several injuries with both board riders and surfers hit by board fins.
In conditions such as this, the jet rescue ski comes into its own. In mass rescue situations such as we had on New Year’s Day this craft, which has a rescue mat pulled behind, is capable of handling six people, either by returning them to the beach or just moving them to a safer area.
With the board riders being forced from their natural board riding area off Second Point by massive sweeps, they took up an area at Main Beach, away from the bathing area and toward the rock wall. Jet ski patrolmen said that on both Saturday and Sunday the board riders were good and followed their instructions. As a result, there were no major incidents.
Interesting to note that amongst the rescues there were several board riders, obviously of the novice class, surfers who in the words of the patrol members, ‘didn’t have a clue.
The team and equipment required for surveillance and rescues on such a weekend of big surf and massive crowd was as follows. On Main Beach there were four ATV,( All- terrain vehicles) on standby, 20 patrol members plus a radio officer in the tower: and at the tower on the rock wall, a lifeguard and two lifesavers. Out on the water there were two jet ski operators and one Wave Runner driver. All patrol members and vehicles came under the control of the patrol captain, who on days such as these, works in close conjunction with club captain Roger Aspinall. To those men and their team, plus the Noosa Lifeguards,( working under the leadership of senior lifeguard Isaac Smith), we say on behalf of all our locals and tourists, who spent an unforgettable New Year’s weekend on Noosa’s Main Beach, a very big and sincere well done!
Despite the big surf conditions, the nice friendly and cooperative attitude (noted by the lifeguards)of those who came to bathe and relax on the sands of Noosa, made for a happy, safe and unforgettable all-round New Year.
