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Swimming Pools

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Staying at a hotel recently, I went to its swimming pool. Not an unusual thing for a hotel guest to do, but an unusual thing for me to do, as I may be about to prove.

The large swimming pool was not very deep. It was 3 and a half feet deep, from lip to bottom. And the top foot or so was dry air, so it was actually just 2 and a half feet from water surface to bottom.

What surprised me was not that it was that depth but that this pool, apparently of recent construction, was of a uniform depth throughout. There was no "shallow end" nor any "deep end."

When did those features of a hotel pool cease to be standard?

For all I know, this is an anomaly and most of the world's hotel pools still have deep ends.

Or, maybe this has been a characteristic for a long time, and I am merely remembering fondly the deep ends of pools of my childhood, a period vanishing in the rear view mirror.

Tort lawyers? Is a pool of constant depth easier to defend in a lawsuit? I don't know. There were hotel employees around, but none of them was easily identifiable as "The Lifeguard."

This isn't going anywhere very philosophical I fear, so I'll let it just tail off ...
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