Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Pool Review: Cocoa YMCA

Address: 1519 Clearlake Rd., Bldg. 18 Cocoa, FL 32922 (on the campus of Brevard Community College)
Hours: M-F 5:30AM - 7:30PM, Sa: 8:00AM - 4:00PM, Su: 12:00PM - 3:30PM
Size: 50M x 25M, SC when I was there. However, the day I left they were setting it up for LC for the German National Team, or so the lifeguard said.
Environment: Outdoor, ~80F

The Cocoa YMCA's aquatic center's main attraction is a pretty nice pool. While the pool certainly wouldve been better if it had been set up for LC but SCM is still preferred in my book over SCY. Other positive attributes were the jet location, water used, and the availability of lanes at 5:30AM.

The jets pumped warm water in through the bottom of the pool which is therefore a force perpendicular to a swimmer's direction of travel rather than parallel to it in the case of jets mounted on the side of the wall. The obvious advantage here is that water does not effect the swimmer's lap times.

Speaking of the water... the temperature was nice but more importantly the concentration was superb. No worrying about excessive chlorine because the water was slightly salty rather than chloriny. I'm guessing this decision was made due to the high salt in the air which exists due to their proximity to the ocean but who knows. Regardless, less chlorine is always better!

While the pool had some positive attributes, there were a couple of negatives as well. Although it did have a pace clock, the clock was a good 15m from the pool and the second hand was one of the skinny ones which made it a bit hard to pick up. Additionally, the gutter system was minimal which resulted in a bit of a chop when the swim team was also in the pool but nothing too bad. I've certainly swam in much worse.

All in all I had a pretty good few days at the Cocoa YMCA. The staff was very friendly and I didnt have to pay a dime!

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