I can tell you about the advice which saved my life.
It happened during my business trip to Mauritius. That was the first time that I was going to see Indian Ocean so I was very excited about the prospect. When we arrived, the very first thing I wanted to do was to put my swimming suit on and take a swim from the hotel beach. I did so. I swam a couple of hundred meters and decided to return. I started moving towards the hotel beach. But it did not work out. I tried different methods but each time waves drove me more and more away from the beach. “That might be a silly ending”, I thought. And that was the point when I recalled what my swimming instructor told me once about swimming in open waters. He said, “Never try to fight waters, by doing so you will get tired very quickly and spend your energy with zero result. Your task is to relax, to feel dynamics of the waves and move in line with them. Imagine you’re a part of it”. I guess it was only the 7th try when I managed to catch a wave and finally swam back to hotel.
His causal advice saved my life. I can’t know if it will save yours but you can never know.

Just remember: Swim parallel to the shore to escape a rip tide.