Stupid stupid turists

[lakrids404]

I work as camping manager near a small sea side village, and I have just heard on the radio, that another kid today got declared drowned, after the search after the five year old child that had drifted to the sea on an inflatable boat got declared pointless. They did find the boat but the boy had gone overboard. When you know the ocean around here, you get the same feeling, when you hear that a child did play with an inflatable boat in the ocean, as other would have if they heard about young children got permission to play soccer right up to a highly trafficked road, you just don’t do that to your children. But the parents did most probably not think/know about the risk, when they let child play with the boat.

A little month ago died four of a family of five when three of the family members got in problems in the ocean, the two other tried to save them, the end result was tragic.
I don’t what you can do to do to prevent this for happening again. There have been talk of coast guard, but the Danish coast is huge compared to the country size, so a few coast guard on a few couple miles would at be more symbolic than practical.

The best would probably be if one could educate the tourist, so that they know, that you have to show respect over for the ocean, that it has powers that can surprise and overpower you, even if you are a careful swimmer. But how do you get in contact with the tourist? The high risk group seems to be German tourist on private arranged holidays in summer houses, and therefore rather geographically diffused as group.

I really don’t know what should be done, other than the diffuse something has to be done

Poor poor parents

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you can do, either. Australia has a very large coastline, but we have something called the Surf Life Saving Association. They are volunteers, and they mark which part of the beach they are patrolling. The system is well-known, so people know if they don't see the red and yellow flags there is no-one to help if they get in trouble.

On the other hand, we have a running joke here that crocodiles only eat American tourists. I don't think it's actually true, it's just the same problem as you have: the tourists don't understand how dangerous crocodiles are, or which places to stay out of the water, so they are the ones who get attacked.

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

They have found the dead child, he got washed up at shore, at about the same spot where he went down.
I talked later on to an Austrian tourist that has visited Denmark for many years. And he said that they have some the same problems, sort of, with Hollanders that hikes in the mountains without telling anybody their travel route. The Austrians say when they see a patch of Alpen roses down in a ravine that ‘there lays another Dutch tourist’. Nice to see that morbid humour is rather universal.

Talking to the Austrian made me also remember back to a time, when I have had borrowed a mountain cottage in Norway, and I can still remember the hike I took to get to the nearest city. When I looked at the map, I did estimate my travel time, to little over two hours when I just followed the fjord…The trip took over eight hours, and I had a moment, when I walked through some bog like area, where I thought ‘this could very well end badly (stupid Danish tourist)’.

We are, I am afraid, creatures that are rather influenced of our environment.