Camber Sands tragedy

[steveeeeeeeee]

I find this both tragic and puzzling:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-37182791

I've been to Camber a number of times, I've tried to swim there, but it's nigh on impossible to get even knee deep in the shallow waters. The only explanation I can have for how this happened is that the men waded out perhaps a kilometre or more from shore and then could not get back when the tide turned. High-tide has been about 5pm recently, so it would have turned around midday. But still doesn't make too much sense, you'd think it would be easier to get back to shore when the tide is coming in.

As an ex-surfer who misses the sea dearly, I know perfectly well how dangerous it can be. I think what shocks me about this tragedy is that I would never believe the seas around Camber could be deadly on summer's day with little wind. Quite clearly they are.

[Squarewheelbike]

Camber Sands tragedy

Sad but predictable, The Daily Heil is reporting a Police cover up and victims dressed like asylum seekers!

[Sits]

Camber Sands tragedy

I saw rip tides mentioned in that article. Many Australian beaches are notorious for rip tides (hence the need for lifeguards) but I always assumed that was connected with surf. But there's no surf in Sussex.

Terrible.

[meregreen]

Camber Sands tragedy

I share Steveee's puzzlement about this. I've been to Camber many times and can't imagine how this could have happened to five adults. By all accounts conditions were calm and from experience you have to walk hundreds of yards out to sea before the water reaches waist high.

Coincidentally, my daughter was at Camber with her gran the day before and it would never have crossed my mind that she (who's not the strongest of swimmers) could ever get into any dificulty on that beach.

[Guy Profumo]

Camber Sands tragedy

Squarewheelbike wrote: Sad but predictable, The Daily Heil is reporting a Police cover up and victims dressed like asylum seekers!

Guess who else thought the victims might be migrants/asylum seekers/refugees?

https://twitter.com/SunApology/status/768747814658662400

[steveeeeeeeee]

Camber Sands tragedy

I don't see anything wrong with internally speculating the men could have been trying to cross the channel. I mean, if you are going to try that, and some have, yesterday was just about the best day you could choose. When I first heard about 3 men drowning, it was the only logical explanation to something so unusual.

But I'd wait until I got the facts before putting my internal speculation on the front page of my top-selling newspaper.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Camber Sands tragedy

steveeeeeeeee wrote: you'd think it would be easier to get back to shore when the tide is coming in.

Thinking about this some more, because the water is so shallow, the tide does come in incredibly fast distance-wise. So, if you had waded out about 1km at peak low-tide, and given the time of day they were found it does appear this is so. So, that 1km could have turned into about 2km in the space of an hour to 90 minutes.

[Guy Profumo]

Camber Sands tragedy

steveeeeeeeee wrote: I don't see anything wrong with internally speculating the men could have been trying to cross the channel.

I can.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Camber Sands tragedy

As you said, this is a sad but strange story.

I think I read something that suggested that the guys were clothed. It sort of suggests that, lulled by the shallowness of the water and the benign nature of the location, they'd walked out into the sea despite not being strong swimmers, but then been caught out by some sort of tidal current.

Five men though. Nuts.

[Etienne]

Camber Sands tragedy

Guy Profumo wrote:

I don't see anything wrong with internally speculating the men could have been trying to cross the channel.

I can.

What?

[Gangster Octopus]

Camber Sands tragedy

It reminds me of the Peveril Castle tragedy.

[Guy Profumo]

Camber Sands tragedy

Etienne wrote:

I don't see anything wrong with internally speculating the men could have been trying to cross the channel.

I can.

What?

I can see something wrong with internally speculating that after people had drowned off Camber Sands they were trying to cross the Channel.

I'd internally speculate they'd drowned off Camber Sands after leaving the Sussex coast.

[Guy Profumo]

Camber Sands tragedy

Guess who else has chucked in their groat to this conversation -

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/katie-hopkins-sick-camber-sands-8701711.amp?client=ms-android-alcatel

[WOM]

Camber Sands tragedy

I've made a bit of an ongoing silent study of drownings I read about over here. It's actually amazing how often it's men in their twenties.

There seems to be a crossover point of bravado and stupidity that has groups of young men out in fishing boats just after the ice has gone off the lakes, or jumping off bridges and piers, or continuing to snowmobile at midnight when the spring thaw has started. I mean, most of us were stupid men in our twenties at one point, and there but for the grace....etc.

Also, it's often (here) Asian men. They're avid outdoorsmen and fishermen, but many never learned to swim.

[Etienne]

Camber Sands tragedy

Guy, that might be how you choose to speculate, but it isn't wrong to speculate (internally) that people might be trying to cross the channel, given that we know people (for excellent reasons) are trying to cross the channel.

[WOM]

Camber Sands tragedy

These poor guys died in April. In canoes, on a lake that just thawed, with no life preservers. Terrible.

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2016/04/27/eagle-lake-victims-identified-by-haliburton-highlands-opp

[Guy Profumo]

Camber Sands tragedy

Etienne wrote: Guy, that might be how you choose to speculate, but it isn't wrong to speculate (internally) that people might be trying to cross the channel, given that we know people (for excellent reasons) are trying to cross the channel.

Yep.

Picardy is that much better than Kent and East Sussex...

[Janik]

Camber Sands tragedy

Nocturnal Submission wrote: I think I read something that suggested that the guys were clothed.

Sussex police wrote: These men were not fully clothed when they were pulled from the sea but wearing clothes appropriate for being at the beach for the day.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Camber Sands tragedy

Yes, that's what I meant. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts or whatever, suggesting that they'd gone for a paddle rather than anything else.

[Paul S]

Camber Sands tragedy

A lot of people don't understand how tides work and these vary from one place to another. It' very easy to walk all the way out at low tide and then get caught out by the incoming tide.

I live in Southend and one of my favourite walks is to walk out on the mud at low tide and then walk along the edge of the sea. I'm about a mile and half out at this point but round at Shoeburyness I can be two miles out and it's the most incredible wilderness you will ever experience with huge horizons. The thing is, I time it right. I start walking 1.5-2 hours before low tide, with the aim of coming back just as the tide has turned. Even then I have a couple of hours before the tide is about to cause me problems. The thing is though, when I walk back I frequently find people - sometimes large groups - making their way out there. I have lost count of the number of times I have turned people back, but even then they carry on. Quite a few get rescued by the RNLI.

It's a terrible tragedy though and not the way a visit to the seaside should end.

[caja-dglh]

Camber Sands tragedy

Paul S wrote: not the way a visit to the seaside should end.

I feel this could become a meme.

"Not the way a visit to a nightclub should end" - Orlando, 2016

"Not the way a visit to Disney should end" - Orlando, 2016

[caja-dglh]

Camber Sands tragedy

[Paul S]

Camber Sands tragedy

The latest is they now believe these men were caught between sand bars and not pulled out by a rip current.

[Squarewheelbike]

Camber Sands tragedy

Paul S wrote: The latest is they now believe these men were caught between sand bars and not pulled out by a rip current.

Reports coming out they were having a kick about on the sandbank and got cut off by tide.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Camber Sands tragedy

I see on the web that Britain's favourite sick-minded attention-seeking troll has seized on this tragedy as an opportunity for more gratuitous vileness.