A Big Blue Hole

[Sir_Nigel]

I went swimming the other day in the newly renovated pool in the local leisure centre. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the old pool but they’d spent a small fortune ‘improving’ it; installing crazy water slides, floating rings, a giant wave machine, whirlpools and a Jacuzzi. It even had some cute little cartoon character water jets plonked here and there for the kiddies to squirt each other. In fact there was something for everyone - every entertainment, diversion and novelty you could possibly want - unless you wanted to actually swim. You could slide, splash, squirt, jump, bob or flounder but it was impossible to swim even the shortest distance without being buffeted by the waves, sprayed by a bloody cartoon penguin or dive-bombed by the leaping, shrieking children raining down from all sides. If, in a previous life, you had the misfortune to be amongst a cargo of orphans which was shipwrecked one terrible night in a violent storm on the Cornish coast, it was like that. Only noisier.

 

There was another pool next door where the waters were calm and inviting but that was divided into lanes and full of big, beefy types in goggles and skimpy trunks - serious lane swimmers who think nothing of doing forty lengths in a session, churning powerfully back and forth like Mississippi riverboats. They wouldn’t welcome a casual intruder like me bobbing irresponsibly in their path. Because what if I want to swim widthways? or diagonally? or, just for the hell of it, swim round in circles? What if I want to stop in the middle and float for a bit looking up at the ceiling dreaming about the bacon butty I’m going to have when I get out. In the old pool I could do that. And I could do it confident in the knowledge that I would not be carpet bombed by shrieking orphans or ploughed under in the wash of a passing riverboat. But now that’s all gone. My swimming pool has been dumbed down. So, if you ‘re not up to doing forty competitive lengths in a pair of fertility-threatening trunks off you must go to splash and shriek with children and oafs. All I want is a big blue hole full of warm water. It’s not much to ask is it?

[Hopman]

If you go into the lane swimming bit, you may find it cordoned off into sections for slow, medium and fast swimmers. Stick to the slow section and you should be all right.

If you feel intimidated by the serious swimmers, then can I suggest that if you see one arriving at the poolside as you swim to the end, you say "99" so that they can hear it. They probably won't mess around with you after that.

Alternatively try swimming upstream up one of the flume rides, since this will give you the ride all to yourself and the camp guards life guards won't be able to chase you up it.