What a horror summer season it has been for drownings - again.
Since Christmas, nine people have drowned and there have been countless near-misses.
Every year there are water safety campaigns.
Every year there are lots of deaths.
It has to be questioned whether we give water and especially swift rivers and the sea sufficient respect.
They are hazards with rips, rogue waves, cold temperatures and so on.
These are not environments in which to take risks.
Drownings kill people of many ages and in many places, although men aged 16 to 35 is a particularly prone category.
This might be partly because they are most likely to be out and about fishing, diving, surfing, boating, swimming.
It is probable, too, that male bravado and risk-taking play a part.
Some of the variety of ways to die are illustrated by the nine fatalities.
One man swam out to the Patea River mouth in South Taranaki to retrieve a ball and didn't know his daughters, aged 11 and 10, and a niece, aged 7, had followed him.
The youngster got into difficulties.
The man managed to save his daughters and his niece managed to swim to shore.
The exhausted man, however, got into difficulties in the surf.
A 16-year-old was swept out to sea at Ninety Mile Beach and an elderly man drowned while swimming on a Kapiti Coast beach.
A 15-year-old girl died while paddle boarding at Whangamata and two men died when their boat was swamped while crossing the Manukau Bar.
A student drowned while setting crab pots in Northland and a man, said to be intoxicated, drowned after walking into the sea at New Brighton, Christchurch.
Another man died while surfing at a beach southwest of Auckland.
On Christmas Day a 1-year old drowned in a temporary pool in her family's backyard in Auckland.
The warm and sunny summer has probably increased the numbers at risk.
And we are a nation surrounded by the sea and with many recreational lakes and rivers.
Drowning numbers, which topped 200 in 1980 and 1985, have steadily been falling and since about 2000 have ranged from about 90 to 130.
Last year the number was 90, and 2011 was especially bad by recent standards at 132.
We've been spared accidental deaths at sea this summer in the South, although it appears a man might have been drowned in the Wilkin River.
This better record, though, has not come without close calls.
Three swimmers were minutes from drowning after being caught in a rip near Lawyers Head last Friday before being rescued by lifeguards.
Swimmers have also been saved from rips off St Clair and, no doubt, there have been other sea incidents.
There have been boating injuries at Lake Wanaka and regularly there are reports of people taking undue risks and getting into trouble at Lake Wakatipu.
Life-jacket use, meanwhile, has improved, although there is more progress to be made.
Serious consideration needs to be given to Maritime New Zealand's push to make wearing life jackets compulsory in small boats.
The fall-off in swimming skills in the past decade has been disappointing.
Many schools, faced with heavy costs and hassles, have closed school pools and few children can now swim 200m, the suggested standard.
Swimming is now only a nominal part of the school curriculum.
We are a maritime nation which revels in fishing, surfing, playing at the beach and jet-boating.
We win a large proportion of our Olympic gold medals in water sports, canoeing, rowing and yachting.
There is no getting away from our close relationship with the sea and the water.
But we must always treat them with the highest respect.
They, like the road or the mountains, are hazardous and deadly.
We can never be complacent.
