Swimming lessons Cottage style

Swimming lessons Cottage style

It is always a day full of excitement with everyone buzzing in anticipation of meeting our first year REEF participants. Camp 1 we welcomed 28 wonderful Grade 6 students from the Bellarine Peninsula to start their long and adventurous journey with Cottage from Grade 6 to Year 12.

Activity one was a swim at the pool to see how confident the REEFies were in the water. Hugh loved being in the water and was eager to show the Camp Leaders his swimming ability. He was so keen to show his freestyle skills that he didn’t worry about breaststroke just went straight to freestyle. The short laps were tiring and he was thankful the depth was shallow so he could stand and catch his breath during the lap. Breaststroke was followed by freestyle and then backstroke. Hugh loved the tips and demonstrations from the Cottage leaders. They were so encouraging!

The next stroke was sidestroke, he had never heard of this stroke before and thought it was funny when they told him to use his arms to pick the apple of the tree and put it in the basket! Putting the scissor legs and arms together was a little bit confusing but the camp leaders helped Hugh and assisted him to stay side on in the water. Once Hugh got the hang of sidestroke he excitedly told the Camp Leaders “I can do sidestroke now!”

Hugh’s favourite task was the floating, it was so relaxing and something he could do well, without help from anyone. The final task the Camp Leaders set him was to duck dive through the hula hoops. They mentioned this was good practice for when they go snorkelling, he wondered where they would go snorkelling and got really excited for all the possibilities in future Cottage camps. The first duck dive was a breeze through the hula hoop but the challenge was when he had to go through two hula hoops. Down he went through one and then just on his way up through the second his back hit the second hula hoop but Hugh was so happy he made it!

Hugh couldn’t believe how many laps and swimming he had done. It was all so much fun and the Camp Leaders let them finish with noodle races and free time to play on the water park and Marco Polo.

It was the best swimming lesson! The time in the pool gave our team and our new REEFies all the confidence they needed to truly enjoy swimming (and jumping!) around the reef out the back of the Cottage.