Lifeguards on duty this festive season – Wollongong

Lifeguard Joel Imbeau on Towradgi Beach

Wollongong City Council’s lifeguards have an additional member in their ranks this festive season with Canadian Joel Imbeau joining the team for six weeks.

Joel has joined the 80-strong team of casual and fulltime professional lifeguards as part of an ongoing relationship between Wollongong City Council and the Nova Scotia Lifeguard Service.

Since then 1980s Council has welcomed a number of Canadian lifeguards to work alongside our lifeguards and learn new skills and techniques during summer. Council’s lifeguards have also swapped Wollongong’s beaches for Nova Scotia, with one of our lifeguards recently returning from a four-month stint.

Joel took to the beach on Saturday 21 December for his first patrol, and will remain with the team until end of January.

Wollongong City Council Beach Services Operations Manager Paul Dreghorn reminded swimmers to stick to patrolled beaches, and to swim between the red and yellow flags this summer.

“We’ve 17 patrolled beaches and we’re anticipating more than one million people will visit our beaches this season,” Mr Dreghorn said.

“The Christmas break is always a particularly busy time and with the hot weather we’ve been having recently, I expect they’ll be particularly busy. So please, stay between the red and yellow flags. These are up to identify the safest part of the beach to swim.”

Council’s website has loads of information about our beaches, beach rules and patrol hours and locations.

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