That sucks, but I've been there. Tide can be really deceptive, especially if he just got there or if he just wasn't paying attention.

Certainly is a "fail" on account of him not knowing his beach.

upvote for random old dude with the metal detector.

Well, he gets more distance the bit he swims prior to the tide being sucked-back, you can't run in flippers or anticipate perfectly the rate of cycles in a swell-Not really so much a fail with that as it was his enthusiastic, man-gait to the shore and subsequent false-alarm, swimmer-in-distress.

The safeguard to keep moronic people from drowning has failed?

Good.

That might just be a sandbar caused by an earlier tide and isn't a permanent feature of that beach.

Call in the Seadoo.

Was just about to say that there are sandbars where i live more often than not. You get to them by swimming .. or wading up to your nipples, if you like, but that's slower.

I do!