Coral Reef Encounter volunteer project or how to go snorkelling in the pool
Last year in Colombia, hundreds of adults and children learned to snorkel in the unusually designed Macgill's Common Pool, an impressive stylisation of the seabed. Models of reefs, fish, octopuses and sea urchins were made by local volunteer artists out of rubber gloves, plastic bags and pieces of styrofoam.
According to The Baltimore Sun, a similar event will be held at a larger pool this year, Jeffers Hill Pool. The free event is scheduled for the weekend of July 22 and 23, The training organisers, Roslyn and David Zinner, are asking participants to sign up for 90 minutes at a time to avoid excessive crowds.
The Zinners are avid travellers and snorkelling enthusiasts who launched Coral Reef Encounter in 2019. It had to be put on pause in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
The idea to make the pool more interesting came to Roslyn while swimming.
"I was thinking about how boring the bottom of the pool looks. I remembered times when we were snorkelling in the Caribbean, the way we used to look down and think how amazing and beautiful it was. I thought, "It's a shame coral doesn't live in pools." Then I thought again, "Why not?"
Her 73-year-old husband David, 73, supported her idea and together they set to work. "We pitched the idea to the Columbia Association and they said they would provide the pool and lifeguards," Roslyn recalls. "We did everything else ourselves."
Roslyn and local artist Tauna Caffey made the corals and hundreds of fish. As for David, a former financier and executive director, he said he is not a creative person, so he helped with logistics, set up the website and tested the artificial fish.
Columbia's representative, Danica Rice, who observed the latest testing of the exhibits, remarked "This event was very popular last year and it's nice that they're doing it for free."
In response to this, David corrected Roslyn and stated that this was not entirely true. "We receive smiles."