Swimmer's Daily

  • The University of Florida is making sure its newly hired president, former Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska can dive into the job: It is spending $300,000 to build a new swimming pool behind the stately mansion where Sasse will live with his family, the school confirmed.

    Construction on the expensive addition to the 7,400-square-foot, four-bedroom mansion – provided to Sasse at no cost – started in November and is nearly complete, ahead of his first day as UF’s new president on campus next month. Beyond a perimeter fence, mounds of dirt and pallets of pavers were set to the left of the house, promising a finished pool in the coming weeks.

    A university spokesman, Steve Orlando, said Sasse did not ask for the pool to be built and provided no input over its design. Sasse had no pool at his family’s home in Fremont, Nebraska. Orlando said the estimated $300,000 to cover its cost came from the mansion’s donors, John and Mary Lou Dasburg of Key Biscayne, and other private sources he did not identify.

    The university decided last year, shortly after Kent Fuchs announced he was retiring as UF’s president and before Sasse emerged as the finalist to succeed him, to add the pool to the residence, Orlando said. The university’s original, smaller president’s house also had a pool.

    It wasn’t immediately clear why the new pool for Sasse was so expensive, or how much it will cost the university to maintain. The average cost for an in-ground residential pool in Florida is just under $60,000, although features such as tanning ledges, beach entries, hot tubs, lighting, gas-fired heating systems, and more can increase design and installation costs.

    See 10 Tamba Bay

  • A group of midwives in Northumberland have a secret to their ongoing determination and positivity: sea swimming. Wind, rain, or shine, they venture to the Northumberland Coast and unwind in the waves. We interviewed them and found how this is crucial in order to destress after a hard day’s work. Using our drone and underwater camera housing, we followed them into the water to capture these health professionals in their element.

  • It’s been dubbed ‘Sydney’s first city beach’ after a ban on swimming at Barangaroo Reserve’s Marrinawi Cove was lifted. Guardian Australia went to test out the waters in the heart of the CBD and found the cove teeming with swimmers and even some snorkellers. It’s the first swimming spot to open in 50 years west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as water quality improves in what was once a heavy industrial maritime site. A shark net is in place to allay fears of an encounter with one of the many bull sharks in the harbor and there are showers to wash off the water after a dip. The new swimming area is aimed at improving access to the water for more Sydneysiders  Water worlds: the magic of New South Wales’ ocean pools

  • A tiger shark has been filmed close to swimmers at a popular beach in Perth, Australia.

    In stunning aerial footage, the shark can be seen weaving between two apparently oblivious people close to the shore at Mullaloo Beach.

    Toby Nicol, who shared the video, said lifeguards “quickly jumped in their buggy and sped down the beach to evacuate the water” after being alerted.

    According to Sky News, the beach was then closed due to the shark sighting, for the second time in less than a week.

  • Before she dies, the 82-year-old Bubbe wants to learn how to swim, as chronicled in a short documentary by her granddaughter, Azza Cohen.

  • Generations of goodwill are colliding at the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA. In this Zevely Zone, I caught up with a Coronado water polo coach who is helping underserved students thousands of miles apart. 

    Last August, I introduced you to Asante Sefa-Boakye. The Coronado water polo coach introduced the sport he loves to the people of Ghana. “The kids you don’t see in the water, the kids who never really had much of a welcome,” said Asante. 

    He grew in the United States playing water polo, but his father is from Ghana, Dr. Kofi Sefa-Boakye. “I deliver babies and I’ve delivered about 30,000 babies but this is my one greatest baby that I delivered,” said Dr. Kofi Sefa-Boakye.

    See CBS 8

  • David Mitchell and Greg Davies investigate whether Lee Mack’s prescription swimming goggles caused him to take his trunks off in the lady’s section of the changing rooms. However, Greg Davies offers some drastic measures to prove whether Lee Mack is telling the truth!

  • Of the 84 people who drowned in Queensland in the year to June 2022, 16 were under 17.

    It’s prompted swim safety campaigner Laurie Lawrence to call for swimming lessons in Queensland schools to be overhauled.

    “Water safety is not a wet session … a lot of the schools are getting around saying they’re doing water safety but they’re not doing swimming lessons.”