May day, May day, the Lido has lost it’s Serpentine kink. President Norman Jones this morning supervised major surgery on the white buoys. Robin Hunter directed operations from a boat, ably assisted by Emily Chong.
Heroic divers Andrew Deeley and Dani Lobo donned breathing equipment and braved the unstable sediment (duck shit) on the bottom to attach tow lines to some of the weights at the far end, so Robin's boat could drag them back into position. They were an assortment of tiny concrete blocks and some (of Ron the Con's?) old weight training weights. Andrew and Dani attached new lines to some of the old original mooring weights that Andrew had found and marked during repairs. They are proper mooring weights and are more substantial than the existing small weights.
The buoyed swimming area is now much clearer with straight lines, so anybody with agrophobia (fear of buoys) is warned. One long serving member had warned Norman that the buoyed areas were much larger in his days.
We didn't have time to test the swimming implications of the work. The best advice is not to get close to the outside of the white buoys to avoid the mooring lines. More specifically, take care on the outside of the corner near the pontoon, as the line is quite shallow as it stretches away, with a metal carabiner part way down.
Emily took the pictures
[Rod Newing]
[amendments made by John Tierney]
