SAFETY
From Swim Lessons to Scuba: Turning Pools into a Pipeline by Al Hornsby , owner, Al Hornsby Productions, Singapore
I N THOSE LOVELY ‘OLDEN DAYS,’ there were some very useful practices that were fairly common, but, for whatever reason, didn’t always continue on. One I recall as a kid came about because pools were fairly scarce, and that life-saving and swimming lessons were typically way-more common than diving lessons. Today, the expense and relative scarcity of pool and pool- time hasn’t disappeared, even though there are far more public and private pools out there, in- cluding those owned or leased by dive centers. For pools operated by municipalities, swimming and life-saving are the more popular activities, but, for those that also allow scuba and skin diving instruction, there is an interesting inter- action that can occur. For young swimmers who share a pool with scuba classes, it’s fairly automatic that they quickly become curious about scuba. For me, after moving to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in 1962, where the diving pool-work of the base dive club was done in the base’s big pool, which was also where regular swim lessons, competitive swim- ming and life-saving all occurred, it was easy to see. Not only with kids but also with adults, there was a great deal of shared interest and curiosity, and many of us who got involved with free-diving and scuba (double-house Aqua Lung regs) early on also soon became Red Cross swimmers. Not only did we learn mutually beneficial skill-sets (especially life-saving), a number of us, even once we moved back to bases in the US, almost automatically sought out our love of immersion in the ways the new places could provide, and
often found our first jobs – as lifeguards. These days, for pool-operators, the ongoing expense is such that pools need to have their usage as constant as possible – even small pools operated chiefly for scuba classes. Kids’ Red Cross courses, and competitive programs, especially during the week, also often happen just after school hours,
before evening scuba classes typically begin. For those who own their own pools, they may already be involved in such a practice, but if not, it’s definitely worth examining, especially as regards to the old axiom that unused assets don’t typically stop costing, they just stop earning. Experience shows us that kids quickly can become fascinated by snorkeling and diving if they get to be around it, and experienced swimmers also already have water-comfort, which makes dive training easier. This makes after-school swim courses at a dive center’s owned or leased pool (which often sit empty until evening scuba classes get going) quite interesting, especially considering that a parent often accompanies. Simple pool try-dives
for the parents during their kids’ swim classes can also create a ‘cool factor’ for the kids, impressed that mom or dad scuba dived, which may even further motivate the parents’ in- volvement. The same equation can play out in commercial pools used
by dive centers for teaching scuba and/or swim- ming lessons for kids – batching both can become a force-multiplier, benefitting the dive center in a host of ways.
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