Unfortunately I have very few photos of the things I have witnessed here, but the few I have do help tell the story.
In the photo below, two young men are left to swim into a position from which they have no way of returning (in the rip current that pulls out through the main channel). The shouts and whistles of other bathers gets the attention of lifeguards (and myself with my camera, halfway up the hill).
A lifeguard on a paddle board comes to their aid but is soon overwhelmed, he falls off his board and all three are sucked out through the channel.
The other guard on duty responds and swims out to help (with the yellow buoy below). Both victims now have to be dragged out to sea and hundreds of meters to the south, around the rocky point and bought back through the surf. Meanwhile another man (possibly drunk) attempts to follow the lifeguard out (he can be seen swimming frantically at the bottom of the photo).
When he was in an unrecoverable position in the rip current (see photograph below), I stopped taking pictures and ran down to the pool. Unfortunately when I arrived down there, everyone was watching the rescue to the right and no-one had seen this guy. I assume that he drowned and sunk but cannot be sure.
Just two guards for one of the busiest Sundays of the year. People needing to be rescued all afternoon, including a young boy that was sucked out of the pool a little earlier. And no attempt was made to keep bathers in the shallows either before or after this incident, let alone ban bathing, which would have been the only responsible thing to do on a day like this.
The two photos below were taken the previous afternoon and show bathers repeatedly being allowed to wander into potentially deadly situations from which they were lucky to recover themselves.
In the sequence below, a month or so after the above, I looked down at the pool and noticed two young holiday makers (a young man and a young woman) getting ready to go snorkelling. A large northerly swell and high tide meant that there was no way that they would be able to swim against the rip current. However, no warning was given from the lifeguard tower (the loudspeaker had been broken for several months) and they swam out into what looked to them to be a safe pool (and why not when so many websites tell them to go snorkelling here!). After several minutes, they realise that even swimming at their hardest, with fins on, they are unable to move back against the current. Panic sets in and they begin to wave their arms and shout.
The whistles of other bathers alert the lifeguards to their predicament. Two guards respond but are overwhelmed, fall off their boards and end up in the water with the victims. Another bather tries to help but is also soon in trouble.
Fortunately it is holiday season and more guards are available to retrieve the situation. But the reality is that these bathers' safety should never have been compromised in the first place. A year ago they would have been warned of the dangers and prevented from getting themselves into this situation.
These pictures also help highlight just how dangerous this place can be even when it looks safe. Fit young adults with fins on and strong athletic lifeguards struggled in what looks to the uninformed eye to be a calm pool.