Diego Saldaña-Rojas / Contributing writer
There are 776812.5 gallons of pool water at Biscayne Bay Campus Aquatics Center.
Whose pool is it, anyway?
“We have a facility that’s not around every corner,” said Christina Reddick, assistant aquatics coordinator.
The 75-by-146 feet pool hosts a variety of groups all year round on a daily basis.
“In the summer, it gets pretty busy. It’s our busiest time,” said one of the pool’s lifeguards, Francisco Bolado.
According to Bolado, along with students, there are three separate summer camps that rent the facility. The North Miami Neptune’s Swim team also use the pool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. The Aquatics Center’s hours are Monday-Friday 1-7 p.m., and Saturday 10-5 p.m. The diving well is reserved for Scuba Diving classes on Saturdays.
The pool welcomes members of the surrounding North Miami community. Faculty and staff may also use the pool for a day pass fee or membership, which can be annual or per semester. Day passes cost $7 per swimmer.
According to Reddick, the most frequent weekly users are F.I.U’s Women’s swim and dive team- the only sports held at BBC.
Some members of the swim team use the facility on a daily basis during the summer in preparation for the upcoming season, which begins on the Friday of homecoming week.
“My goal is to get more in water activity,” Reddick said.
Reddick mentions that the frequency of pool usage is a close tie between students and the North Miami Neptune’s swim team. Despite the free student admission, something has driven freshman journalism major Dylan Slack away from the pool.
“No, I do not use the pool and have never used the pool here,” Slack said. “Now that it’s summer, there are too many kids here to swim freely.”
Anyone walking through BBC will inevitably come across several different groups of children who belong to summer camps. If students decide to use the pool they must be willing to share part of their space with these children.
“Not many college campuses have an olympic pool and a diving well,” said lifeguard . “Students should take advantage of it.”