Water Safety Tips That Could Save Your Life on the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes truly live up to their name—great!

They are quite fun to swim, boat, fish, and enjoy all kinds of various water pursuits. But it's important to remember—the Great Lakes come with dangers too

Almost every year, without fail, we see or hear news stories about drowning deaths on the Great Lakes. The numbers show this as well. According to Great Lakes Water Safety Consortium, "drowning is the number one cause of accidental injury death in children ages 1 to 4."

If you want to enjoy swimming, boating, and all that the Great Lakes have to offer, it's important to be aware of some water safety tips.

Water Safety Tips for the Great Lakes

One tip that will surely save you any trouble before it even starts is checking with the National Weather Service's (NWS) surf forecasts.

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The NWS keeps an eye on the Great Lakes and lets you know whether a particular beach has a low, moderate, or high risk of waves and currents.

Plus, everyone should know how to handle themselves in channel and rip currents.

Do the Great Lakes Have an Undertow?

A common misconception is that the Great Lakes have an undertow, but that's untrue. What they have instead is a channel current or a rip current, and they do not pull you under. Instead, what they do is pull you away from shore.

Rip currents form when waves break over a sandbar near the shoreline, piling up water between the breaking waves and the beach.

How to Escape Rip and Channel Currents

If you find yourself in a rip current, to escape without tiring yourself and risking drowning, here's what you do:

• float with the current, not against it
• when the current dissipates, swim parallel to the shoreline
• when out of the current, swim back to the shore

Here's what a channel current is:

A channel current flows parallel to shore, between the beach and an island. A channel current forms when the presence of a partially submerged sandbar connector between the mainland and an offshore island causes the flow of water to speed up as it goes between the island and the shore.

If you find yourself in one of these, rather than swim back towards the sand bar, even if it's closer, you should swim back to shore. It's the safer route.

Structures Cause Currents Too

Natural currents aren't the only thing swimmers should be aware of; structures like piers and breakwalls cause dangerous currents too. These situations call for help from others, so be sure to get someone's attention! Get to a ladder if possible, but you should call for help immediately.