SURVIVAL
SWIMMING LESSONS:
A new way to volunteer for Sea Rescue
T
HE COLOUR OF THE water at the Sea Point pavilion is a brilliant azure. It blends into the ocean behind it and the blue sky above. The picture it creates in one’s imagination is of a beautiful holiday, and the happy shouting of children swimming, splashing and having fun in the Cape Town municipal swimming pool only adds to this effect. In the shallow pool there is a group of people wearing bright-pink vests and hats. The contrast with the water is remarkable, causing passers-by to stop and take another look. 10 |
SEA RESCUE AUTUMN 2020
It is a Saturday morning and a Sea Rescue Pop-up Survival Swimming lesson is in full swing. On the pool deck a Sea Rescue volunteer, dressed in the same lumo-pink, is giving a water safety lesson to 12 children who are sitting in a group, listening attentively. In the water are four instructors, also wearing bright pink, each with three ‘students’. The students, who have brightpink caps on, are at different stages of what looks just like a swimming lesson. One group is holding hands in a circle and putting their faces
in the water. They blow bubbles through their noses and then have a good laugh at what they have just done. Another group is holding onto the wall and kicking for all they are worth. The last three are floating on their backs, with their instructor beaming at them and offering advice. ‘Head back, head back … put your ears in the water,’ he encourages. A student learning to float is one of the absolute highlights for the instructors. To be able to watch the face of one of your charges
PHOTOGRAPHS: ANDREW INGRAM
Sea Rescue has launched a Survival Swimming programme that teaches children the basic skills to stay afloat should they find themselves in difficulty in the water. Andrew Ingram tells us more about this rather colourful initiative.
