SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Before heading into the ocean, beachgoers may check the weather. A new app is encouraging people to look at much more.
Beach Buddy brings information including surf conditions, tides, water quality, beach flags, marine hazards and shark sightings together in one place.
Developer Dawn Lindsay began developing the app after learning about the fatal shark attack that killed UCSB student Lucas Ransom off the Santa Barbara coast in 2010.
Lindsay said she wondered whether having more information about ocean conditions and shark activity could have changed Ransom's decision to enter the water.
“If he had known that maybe there was a tagged shark, or if he had known that the conditions were perfect for that to happen, would that warning have prevented him from going?” Lindsay said. “And that question haunted me.”
One of the app's features alerts users when there is a shark within 50 miles of their location.
The app can also identify tagged sharks near a beach based on actual tracking data.
“Active marine warnings. You have a tagged shark right now off the coast of Santa Barbara,” the app says during a demonstration. “That’s based off of an actual ping.”
Lindsay said the goal is not to tell people whether they should or should not enter the water, but to give them enough information to make their own informed decision.
“The idea behind the app is to give as much information to every beachgoer possible for them to make a good decision about what beach they want to go to and what day they want to go,” Lindsay said.
Once users arrive at the beach, Lindsay recommends checking the information again because conditions can change.
To use the app, beachgoers search for their location. Beach Buddy then provides real-time information about the weather, tides and other conditions, along with any active hazard warnings.
The app covers more than 10,000 beaches worldwide.
Beach Buddy has also recently added location- and season-specific information about marine life, including what wildlife beachgoers might encounter and how they should respond.
Lindsay said the goal is to give people more information before they decide to get into the water.
“Once they're there, double check it again and find out if you actually want to go into the ocean,” Lindsay said.
For Santa Barbara beachgoers, the app offers another tool for understanding conditions along the local coastline before getting in the water.
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