Who Taught You to Swim

[Malcontent]

I taught myself!

[louis]

me here taugh myself.

[Byron]

Interesting that I struggled with breast stroke having seen that as the start of learning imposed by all instructors - but in fact got my confidence in my own front crawl.

[bostonspdo]

I didn't know how to swim growing up. When I got to college, it was a requirement that you know how to swim. This was in the days when Physical Education was a required part of college curricula. If you didn't know how to swim, you took a semester of swimming instruction (water safety, really) instead of regular P.E. The "final exam" in the course was to get into the middle of the deep end of the pool and by whatever means you chose, stay there without touching the bottom or sides for half an hour. I liked swimming enough to take a full year of swimming, which was also my intro to water polo. It wasn't my intro to speedos, which I already liked to wear to the beach, because classes were held nude. You could wear a suit if you wanted to, but only one or two of about fifteen guys ever did.

[Byron]

.....but what's going on here? (some kind of misplaced joke ?)

Allan 8100 arrives as new member December 12 and the same day there are FIVE posts from him . There is a self-introduction in off-topic forum and some of what he writes is coherent and well presented - but the rest is rubbish.

[kumu]

I learned at a beach sheltered by off shore reefs. Its important to learn the ocean. It has its wonders and its beauty, it can give you a lot of fun, but you can never completely trust it, you have to be aware of your surroundings and whats happening, all the time. Actually I prefer lake swimming, there is nothing that I am aware of that can get you in a lake: no sharks, sting rays, jelly fish, no rip tides, no sneaker waves. But still, in the ocean you can put on a dive mask and see really incredible beauty down there, or ride waves one way or another for hours on end.

[Byron]

Agree - in my early days of weak swimming ability I was frightened by the strength of sea currents taking me way along the beach from where I had started out and how powerless I felt even when no big waves were breaking over me.
Underwater views can be stunning and the Red Sea is well known.
Egyptian resorts are much visited but Israel gives National Park protection status to the coral reefs off Eilat and there I recall an endorsement from an Aussie to say it's as good as the Great Barrier Reef.

[Byron]

Time to leave - you're taking the piss out of this forum !

[Byron]

Well done Mike - got rid of him.
This spammer was called Allan 8011 and was flogging pool liners.