Waterfront situations and challanges?

[gabor85_hungary]

Hi dear Waterfront fans:)

I would like to use this forum to learn as much as possible about waterfront stuff, so please teach me: )

My question for now is that What kind of challenges and situations did you face while working on waterfront?

(From everyday challenges to heavy lifeguard situations please share everything, becasue I'm very interested to know how is the life of a waterfront person)

Gabor

[Melk]

Campers not wanting to get in the water, wanting to switch boating classes in the middle of the week, and staff goofing off. The goofing off part was only bad when we had a baby turtle hatch on the beach. I got so annoyed with the staff that after I got them to go back to working I didnt talk to them for a good 3 hours.

[happy_camper]

1. Young girls get bored on the water very quickly.
2. They all want to switch seats in the boat after about 5 minutes.
3. "My lifejacket is too tight/hot"
4. They don't want to wear a life jacket.
5. During Mom & Me and Family Camp, the Parents are the biggest problem. They do not listen to me and my instructions. When I tell them to stay low while entering the boat, they don't pay attention and then stand while trying to get in. I had a mom fall in the lake because of this.
6. When I was a program aide, the instructor let kayaks go out on the lake during very strong winds. There were white caps on our 40-acre lake... 2 girls fell out of their boats.
7. Girls tie their boats together and pull eachother.
8. Splashing/Hitting with paddles.

Those are all the problems I can think of right now. I may have more later.

[Life_Saver]

Pool Related-
As waterfront director it was my duty to maintain the pool, so i was the one doing the twice per day chemical tests and cleaning the pool etc. It took a while to get into a regular routine and to know what to do if the numbers were off. I'd say that that was the most difficult part of my job, mainly because I didn't expect that to be a part of my duties.


Lake Related-
We had problems with strangers using our private beach front. Almost every day we caught people fishing on our pier, swimming in our swimming area and using our Aqua Jump. A few people actually had the guts to tell me that because our aqua jump is in the public lake, then it's free game. (Because the lake obviously is public.) I guess the main deal was that people who rode past in boats saw our beach area and assumed it was a public beach. We actually had to take off the ladder to the trampoline every time we were done using it in hopes that people couldn’t get on it. (But that didn’t stop them). One time I caught the neighbor kids who tied their canoe up to our trampoline and were playing on it. Another time we caught adults who parked their jet skis next to it and climbed on. This was a serious liability issue so we ended up calling the police for anyone who trespassed. Our sign saying "PRIVATE PROPERTY, DO NOT ENTER", did not help. And neither did our roped in beach front. The neighbors had no excuse… they know they live next to a Girl Scout Camp!

In general- I thought it was difficult to get the staff involved in the waterfront activities. It may seem hard to believe, but many of our non-lifeguards seemed to never want to get wet. (Especially in the lake). So most of the lifeguards were primarily running the show when they should be just life guarding. Make sure that the counselors know that just because the lifeguard's are in charge they don't get to have time off. They should be playing with the kids!

[gabor85_hungary]

Very interesting posts. Thank you and keep sharing! You know: Sharing is Caring:p

[Melk]

We also had a problem with the campers wanting to sink our funyaks and paddle boats. I spent manny a day siphoning (sp?) nasty lake plant filled boats.

[gabor85_hungary]

And isn't it boring if nothing happens for a long time? Do you use some rotation system in order to not get bored with what you do?

(For example if you are a life guard I guess it's very important that your attention is always on the top, but if nothing happens I think your attention intensiveness may decrease, no?)

[runrachrunn]

we rotate during buddy calls - every 15 minutes.

Things we dealt with this summer:
1. Rescuing walkie talkies that fell in the lake and performing CPR on them (jk)
2. Catching snapping turtles- caught 3 in one week. OMG what a way to get your adrenaline going, lol.
3. Kid with a nosebleed on the dock which wouldn't stop.
4. The kid that wouldn't do his swimtest until the day he was going home.
5. Swim staff (3 in particular) goofing off when they should have been watching their water.
6. Head of swim who had no idea what he was doing.

[Life_Saver]

Our swim sessions are one hour in length so we call a buddy check half way through and rotate. It's not only important to keep the guards alert, but if the sun if shining directly at you it's nice to move.

[Smudge]

One of the camps I worked at had a boating specialist who specialised on sailing so if we were taking the canoes or Kayaks out on the bay (ocean bay not lake) we had a life guard watch us from the tower.

One day I had group of 7-10 year old campers and the sea was fairly choppy but the waterfront director would let me cancel our boating slot. After having to rescue most of the campers from the reed bed at least once each I decided enough was enough and took them back in.

SO the point I am making is beware of the weather and the fact that being younger than us the campers may not find it as easy to be out in conditions that may not bother us.

[Life_Saver]

I just thought of something else that happened last summer. Our camp director was out sailing on the lake with a camper on board and the sailboat completely tipped upside down. Of course they were all the way on the other side of the lake so we sent lifeguards out in a kayaks to see if they were ok. They came back with the camper that was a little shocked at what just happened then we had to go back out and try to flip the boat back over. It was extremly difficult because of the sail was all the way underwater. But we put all of our weight on a side and did it! After all that struggle we had to pull the sailboat in with the kayaks. It was ruff.

[speedx5xracer]

lack of general (bunk) counselor assistance while they are at the water front... many times its the GC's who cause more of the problems than even the worst campers we have.

[happy_camper]

1. Rescuing walkie talkies that fell in the lake and performing CPR on them (jk)


Yea... yesterday (I work at camp on weekends during the year) my phone fell off my pants and into the lake. I tried to retreive it with a net but was extremely unsuccessful.
So I call the Cingular people so I can get a new phone... of course you can't reach anyone on Saturday evening, and they are closed today, so I have to wait until tomorrow.
It was definatley interesting. And now I don't have ANYONE's phone number!

[these.city.lights]

Surely the sim card would just work? The numbers will be on that?

[annknee]

Im not a watery person, definately not a lifeguard! At my camp the lifeguard lifeguard, teh counselors head count, so a counselor is always on the water front during swimming sessions counting campers in the different levels (campers take tests at the beginning of the session and have a level (1-4, 1 being the beachy type area, 4 the lake proper) they can enter - they can enter the level above with a life jacket) The biggest problem with us was external - all the shore was private property except one area and the lake was a public area. We had a probem with the locals throwing potatoes (something I heard from the local people and the waterfront director together) and people peeing in the lake, which is not really appropriate in front of GS!

[Smudge]

This is a situation that happened to my friend at the first camp i worked at.

While at canoeing - she, as the boating specialist and the groups counsellor were in funyaks. Anyway, she was out one the water (a large private pond) with the boat house keys round her neck on a lanyard with plastic clasp thing. She told the girls not to tip her but the did and in doing so she manage to open the clasp when it was caught between her and the funyak.

She started panicking cos the only inhaler she had at camp was in the boat house (she had other at home an hour away) and the other counsellor wasn't controlling the kids.

So I came down with my girls for boating to be met with a scene that could only be described as utter confussion.

I ended up swimming out to the group to take control. Cos all the girls were trying to dive for the keys with no co-ordination as to when they were or who was.

I sent most of the girls and the counsellor into the dock, then spent a few more mins looking for the keys before getting my friend and the rest of the girls back to the dock.

[annknee]

I guess that is pretty much the worst thing that can happen! But in a strange way the best thing can happen - i bet that if the campers only remeber one thing it will be that. Plus i can imagine that i really brought out the best in people!

On a slightly different note, i guess that smudge must be a night owl like myself!!

[Smudge]

yeah - I am currently on MSN with my friend from New Hampshire.

Since I dont have to be up in the morning i dont care if i am up late

[Possuumm]

:) i also don't have to get up early tomorrow- done with scool as of friday *celebrates*

[Smudge]

cool - well done

[clarabelle1985]

at my camp we had a solution to that smudge all keys that had anything to do with the waterfrount are kept on mini bhoy keyrings so stay aflote even if go into water as we on hugh lake 9miles by 1 thats really deep and slopes majoyrly away from shore u loose anything if its drop as we discovered nearly lossing franklin the dummy we were using for lifegaurd practice even though teied hime to two cinder blocks to keep him in positon it took 9 lifegaurds have an hour to find hima nd recoer him cause we had to dive down bout 25ft.

there only one place in camp wehre its safe to swim as the deppth gets depper gradually the rest of camp has hugh drop off wher eit suddnly get very deep always orried kids go in ther eand not relaise the depth. the other jenni from m camp not jenny on here was baptised on the lake my first summer in our camp chaple which is right on lake very a,using when she was ducked under her and our boss ( also a minister) nearly went of the drop off

[Smudge]

bhoy keyrings that is a realy good idea (maybe need to attach one of them to my specs when am on canoe trips)

[happy_camper]

oohhh I like the idea of a bouy key ring (and one for the cell too!!)

And I would take the sim card out to get my data, but I couldn't retrieve the phone, and therefore don't have the sim card!

[phcamp]

Be super aware of the weather conditions in your area. Especially from what direction and how fast it can change. Err on the side of caution.
Buddy system! nuff said.
Know who the lead counselor or senior counselor is in the cabin groups attending waterfront that day. Then you know who to direct concerns to about counselor participation.
Practice emergency action every week.
Spare sunglasses. Cheap ones for those of us who lose them often.
Let your lifeguards know what 'on time' means, Help them be on time with silly radio calls.
Chain and lock the replica Statue of Liberty so she doesn't take a canoe out in the middle of the night. She can sink if you're not careful.
Floating key fobs are about required everywhere I thought. You can even get the ones that look like little PFD's. Camp office ought to have backup keys for everything.