What is a riptide?

What is a riptide? It is a stream of rapidly moving water that is heading away from the beach and back out into the ocean, in effect forming its own current. If you are caught in this current, there is a risk of being pulled out deeper into the ocean that you want to be. The biggest thing to remember, though, is that riptides in general are not extremely wide in area. This means if you react smartly instead of fighting against the riptide, you can get yourself out of it. If you are ever in the ocean and feel a swift current trying to pull you out into the ocean, swim parallel to the shore. Do not try to swim towards the shore, the riptide will be too strong to swim into and will quickly tire you out and increase the risk of the current taking you out into the ocean. Continue to swim parallel to the shore until you feel the current from the riptide weaken and eventually break. At this point you can either swim (if you are in water too deep to stand), or walk back to the shore if your feet can touch the bottom of the ocean.