The surf's hardly up, but people are still flocking to Northland's wonderful beaches.
Relatively calm conditions have caused few challenges for the region's lifeguards, with sunburn presenting the biggest danger.
At Ocean Beach, patrol captain for the Climatech Regional Lifeguard Service, Rob Pidgeon, has been impressed with the beachgoer behaviour and the
guards have yet to perform any emergency procedures.
With numbers peaking at about 200 these holidays, the only real concern was people not swimming between the flags. "It's a bit frustrating when people ignore the warnings, but there's only so much you can do."
With up to 500 people on the beach at Waipu Cove, head guard Josh Steward agreed the behaviour of beachgoers had been impressive.
He said the only problem was that many swimmers were entering the water at the southern end of the beach where people also launched boats. The guards were talking to the Whangarei District Council to see if a sign could be put up near the ramp to warn of the dangers.
At Ruakaka, head guard Luke McBride said the only difficult situation the guards had to deal with was an "extremely intoxicated" woman on Wednesday.
"Our biggest head count was 400-plus people but ... they've been really good at swimming between the flags."
• Guards will patrol beaches at Whangarei Heads, Ruakaka, Waipu Cove and Mangawhai daily until February 3. From then until Easter, patrols will only run at weekends. In the Far North, patrols will be at Ahipara until February 13.
