Mindil Surf Life saving club.

Mindil Surf Life Saving Club -NT
Today was is our first Surf life saving patrol, since we left SA. We went on patrol at 1330 until 6.30pm at Mindil Beach. It's  a lovely beach, Steve and one of the other young lads did a box jelly fish check first, they pull a net through the water and see if they find any, they warn the public there may still be some around. On this occasion no Box jelly fish were found. The box Jelly Fish season ends April to May and they declare the beach open from 01st June. Next Steve did the Croc check, looking for signs of croc's anywhere on the beach or bank!!!! We did a lot of swimming here, the water is so warm.
Mindil Beach Club have about 30 members and approximately 10 are nippers. At present they have no surf club and just work out of containers, they hope to get a club built in the future, however it is Aboriginal  land, so will take some time. We had a great time with a friendly club,

                                       Steve doing the drag net -checking for Box Jellyfish.

                                                         Steve & Andy on Patrol.

                                               Nippers & SRC's doing warm up exercises.

                                       Nipper's having a team race - near the end of the day.

Every Thursday & Sunday night they have The Mindil Markets, it's a very large market, with lots of arts, crafts and a huge amount of food stalls, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, India etc etc, Now this is advertised as a big tourist attraction and what happens is, people take their chairs & booze, do some shopping, buy their dinner and sit on the beach and watch the stunning sunset, and guess what as we were on patrol when the sun was setting, the crowd applauded as the sun went down!!! 
Now as Surf life savers we have to think of preventive action's and what would have happened if the Sun had not set? Could we have had a riot on our hands? Could we have had hundred's of people with depression and throwing themselves into the sea?
If anyone has any thoughts on this (remember they only get these stunning sunsets on a Thursday & Sunday) please could you let me know.

                                     Our Patrol Captain and the twins coming off the beach.

                                               The crowds of people watching the sunset

                                                    The Thurs & Sunday sunset!!!!!

I have to say we had a great day on patrol, it was very different as hardly anybody go's in the water, it was to cold for a lot of them!!!! They made us very welcome and are a very friendly bunch We had a great laugh about the Thursday/Sunday sunsets!!!!!!!