How dangerous is the sea in Bali?

More visitors are hurt by the ocean in Bali than by crime, and it is not close. The waves are not the danger. Rip currents are.

What a rip current is

A rip is a fast, narrow channel of water flowing away from the beach. Waves push water up onto the sand, and that water has to return to sea; it does so through the path of least resistance, often a gap in a sandbar or beside a headland or reef.

Rips do not pull you under. They pull you out, sometimes at a speed no swimmer can out-swim.

How to spot one

Look at the water for a minute before you go in. A rip usually shows as:

• A channel of calmer, darker water between areas of breaking waves. It looks like the safe place to swim, and it is exactly the opposite.
• Water that is discoloured or churned with sand, streaming seaward.
• A break in the line of breaking waves.
• Ripples or foam moving out to sea while everything around is moving in.

Where waves are breaking, water is coming in. Where they are not, water is often going out.

What to do if you are caught in one

1. Do not swim against it. This is what drowns people: exhaustion fighting a current that is stronger than you.

2. Float and signal. Raise an arm. Conserve energy. The current will weaken beyond the breakers.

3. Swim parallel to the beach, not toward it, until you are out of the channel, then come in on the breaking waves.

4. If you are a weak swimmer, float first and worry about direction second.

Which beaches are which

The west and southwest coast — Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, Canggu, Echo Beach, Balian, Medewi — faces open ocean swell and has strong rips. Kuta, Legian and Seminyak have lifeguards and flags in the central sections. Canggu's beaches have limited patrols and very strong currents at some tides.

The Bukit beaches — Padang Padang, Bingin, Dreamland, Balangan, Nyang Nyang — are beautiful, reef-bottomed and often unpatrolled, with sharp reef at low tide and currents around the edges.

The east and southeast — Sanur, Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, Amed, Candidasa — are calmer, largely protected by reef, and the right choice with children or weak swimmers. Sanur's lagoon in particular is shallow and gentle.

Nusa Penida. Two things to know. Angel's Billabong is a natural pool that fills with a surge and has killed people who were swimming in it when a set arrived. Broken Beach and the cliff edges have no barriers. Kelingking's staircase is a steep scramble, not a walk.

The rules that prevent nearly all of it

• Swim between the flags where they exist. Where they do not, ask a local or a surf school.
• Do not swim alone, particularly at an empty beach.
• Do not swim after drinking. Alcohol is a factor in a significant share of drownings here.
• Watch for ten minutes before going in if you do not know the beach.
• Reef shoes for the Bukit beaches at low tide.
• Keep small children in the calm-water beaches, not the west coast.

Surfing, specifically

If you are learning, learn at a beach break with a school: Kuta, Batu Bolong, Seminyak or Sanur. Bali's famous waves — Uluwatu, Padang Padang, Impossibles, Bingin — break over shallow reef and are unforgiving of beginners. Every season produces a queue of visitors with reef cuts and worse from paddling out somewhere beyond their level.

Jellyfish, urchins and the rest

Occasional jellyfish, mostly seasonal and mild. Sea urchins on reef at low tide, which is the argument for reef shoes. Stonefish exist but are rare. None of this is the risk; the water movement is.