Up at the community complex, we had some successes during the three-week aquatic shutdown period — there is a significant population that attend the aquafit and gentle aquafit classes in the pool on a regular basis and we weren’t quite sure how the transition would take place once the drain plug was pulled at the bottom of the pool. We offered a couple of similar-paced dryland programs and were pleasantly surprised to see a pretty good turnout from the hydrological crowd. Many of them, after finding out there is life after water, have decided to incorporate some ongoing dryland training along with the aquatic programming they have grown accustomed to.
Like the baby ospreys you will soon see on the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area osprey cam (www.crestonwildlife.ca), we are still in a fledgling stage with programming your new facility and are always evaluating what works and what doesn’t. Yes, that is a weird comparison, but at worst it highlights a really neat local website.
For those of you over these past 21 days that have found yourself spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathtub, staring open-mouthed into the sky when it rains, and contemplating just how shockingly cold the lake might actually feel on your dry, cracked skin, good news — the pool opens this May 21 at 1 p.m. to wash away all that angst you have been experiencing this past few weeks.
The shutdown process was a great learning experience for us — once drained, we found the pool tanks were in great shape and just required the replacement of a mere handful of tiles.
We also took advantage of the vast emptiness to do an intensive cleaning and hand scrubbing, as well as some pump and equipment maintenance and upgrades. We were also able to document times and methods of emptying and refilling, as well as heating up and balancing that 50 degree water. Overall, you probably won’t notice anything much different, but shutdowns are part of operations and are vital to checking what’s under the hood once a year.
Don’t forget that there are some great Creston Valley Blossom Festival activities here and around the community this weekend and you can check out details in this issue of the Creston Valley Advance in order to fine-tune your daytimer not to miss anything.
Here, on Saturday at 1 p.m., we try something new in the pool with a duck race in the lazy river, which is sponsored by the Creston Wave Swim Club. Since my suggestion of using live wild ducks from the wildlife centre was defeated unanimously, we will be using rubber ducks in this first annual event, which implies it will be so wildly successful that there will be a second and a third. We should have details and contact information by the time you read this.
Upstairs, following the rubber waterfowl competition, there will be the Blossom Festival 70-plus ladies pageant — another new and exciting event which promises to be memorable in one way or another.
Once again, for those that say there is nothing to do in the Creston Valley…
Neil Ostafichuk is the recreation supervisor at the Creston and District Community Complex.