Are you a good swimmer?

[Smilesonfaces]

I can go in to a pool as long as my feet can touch the bottom and the family laugh at my doggy paddle ! My mum was petrified of water so we never went swimming. I ensured the children had lessons as soon as they were old enough and dh,ds and dd are excellent swimmers. I really should take swimming lessons.

[ERICSMUM]

Originally Posted by Mazbar

I’m a average swimmer, my wife swims like a stone. So she wanted our daughter to swim, she started early and progressed to a swimming club, at 8 she did the Marie curie swim 64 lengths of our local pool so over a mile in just over a hour then went to school.

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Blimey, I can do almost half a mile in our local pool but it takes me an hour 😂🙄. Your daughter is more than twice as fast as me.

But I am 64. Also I don’t like to get my face wet so I do breast stroke and look at the ceiling as much as poss !

[Sandra & co]

I can swim but if it came to drowning in deep water I’d drown, I don’t like it if I can’t stand up. All my kids can swim and they had lessons, dh is a good swimmer. They all went snorkelling over the rocks in Kefalonia while I sat in the sea in the waves!

[Melvin Pearce]

Both Lesley and I can swim and we both go to our local pool to do some laps nearly every week. Lesley only does breast Stroke and back stroke and I do front crawl. As we are both 65 it is good exercise for us.

Our daughter is a Dive Master and when she was qualifying she had a set time to do in a pool and a sea swim as well.

Our son also swims and both our children are with the sea scouts as leaders and during the summer they do kayaking the scouts have to prove they can swim a certain length before they are allowed on the lake.

Also as a villa owner and the deep end is 6ft deep we stress in our holiday pack that when children are in the pool, adults must be by the pool.

Melvin and Lesley

[Guest]

We can all swim ,the kids have done it at a competitive level .
My dad and my fil are both non swimmers

[Twin mummy]

All of us can swim fairly well. I’m not fast but used to have quite good stamina. Swimming was a non negotiable with our girls and both are competent. Husband is probably about the same level as I am. Deep water doesn’t scare us but we have a healthy respect for it, if that makes sense.

As for the awful tragedy in Spain, it just doesn’t add up. They seemed to reopen the pool very quickly. Just awful.

[vowels]

I was a basic swimmer but with dodgy joints I am a brick(not a spelling error) 😁 in water.

My husband learned to swim in his twenties and insisted the children were taught to swim properly, hence years of lessons have produced three happy confident little waterbabies.

I agree on swimming being a life skill that all should have. My brother had to dive into a pool to save his two year old who slipped whilst walking along the edge of the pool, I had to haul my three year old out after he took off his wings. And I have seen the Disney lifeguards in action, the young woman was incredibly.

[smithlane]

My Dads brother drowned as a young child so he always insisted on my sis and I taking lessons. We started at the local pool but then as we went to a private primary school we had our lessons there every week. It was also the one thing he made me do for my kids too, not that I wouldn’t but at one time when money was tight he offered to pay as he believes it’s a life skill all children should have. They had lessons from aged 3 through to secondary where my daughter joined the swim team. She is now at college and is a part time lifeguard which the training for is particularly tough so it’s really helped she is a strong swimmer. DS wants to train when he’s 16 too, he’s not as elegant as DD in the water but can hold his own.
I would class myself as an ok swimmer but the older I’ve got (37) the more terrified I am of water so don’t really swim too much nowadays. I’d like to think I could get myself out of trouble in a pool but honestly couldn’t say for definite

[buryboy]

Originally Posted by disney332

Swimming is a wide term from basic to expert. Most would be somewhere in between and many would struggle to cope with issues.

For that reason many avoid the sea which can be unforgiving. None however would avoid the holiday pool... until now perhaps.

Disney332

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I might be wrong but I suspect your comment of ‘ None however would avoid the holiday pool’ is unlikely to be true.
It wouldn’t surprise me if 10% of adults doing a typical Spanish holiday never went in the pool

For us , DW is very nervous about the water, she has to be teased in when the pool is quiet.
I am ok in the pool and will go in the sea only if I can stand up but wouldn’t fancy my chances if I needed to swim 100 metres to save my life
DD is a stylish but slow swimmer
DS is probably a bit better than me

[PPM]

Lots of folks get into difficulty due panic and thrashing about.
For someone who can swim, if you get into difficulties in the sea or salty water, I know it’s difficult, but try to calm down lay on your back with arms out and try to go limp. Your body and legs will float to the surface and as long as you keep your head back you will float with no effort. Yes som water may splash over you face, but if you can manage this it will save you for a while until help arrives.
I went for a swim in Ipenema beach Rio and couldn’t get back in for the undertow even tho I was a strong swimmer. I did the floating thing and a lifeguard on a jet ski threw me a ring and slowly towed me in. These lifeguards. are there whenever the undertow is present, and they constantly pull people back to shore