My favorite swimming pools are oceanside salt water pools and there’s one just a block away from where I’m staying on research leave.
You can read about the St Clair Hot Salt Water Pool here.
“St Clair Pool is an outdoor hot salt water pool built on a beautiful site at the southern end of St Clair beach. It is the only surviving saltwater pool of several in Dunedin from the late 1800s. Its wonderful location on the beachfront makes it a highly pleasurable swimming experience. It is particularly suitable for those who love swimming in salt water, but may not wish to venture into the brisk ocean water. The pool is heated to 28 degrees Celsius and is a mixture of salt and chlorinated water.”
We’ve visited the pool for coffee–it has a cafe that overlooks the pool and the beach–and in the morning it’s not too crowded. There are showers on the pool deck and lots of people just rinse off, throw on their flip-flops (or jandals, as they say here) and stroll home.
I love how many seniors there are using the pool. I definitely won’t feel old. What I want to be able to do is lane swim for fitness, doing freestyle/front crawl. But I need to work on all the bits of the stroke first, especially the breathing. I’ve been looking for a drill progression to get me more comfortable with the breathing first. Then I’d like to work on my kick, and then the arms.
My goal is to be able to swim well enough to join a masters’ swim group and hang out in the slow lane.
Thinking I could give the drills a try while I’m here near one of the most beautiful pools I’ve ever been in before.
Advice? Wish me luck!
Breathing
Kicking
Arms
