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BEMA Armbands
by headsore
We wanted to get our little lad to swim as soon as we could. Both me and his mum didn't learn to swim until we were adults and I can clearly remember 'swimming lessons' at school, whereby all my classmates were off swimming from one end of the pool to the other and I was clinging onto the sides at the shallow end, too afraid to let go ... of the edge of the pool. We didn't want our little lad to be like that so we introduced him to swimming from about the age of five years old. He was eager to get into the water straight away but we needed to make sure he was safe and so invested in some quality armbands for the purpose - the ones we chose were BEMA armbands.
These cost us £4.99 for the two bands and they were in a vivid bright orange colour - so no fear of 'losing' him in the pool then! We bought the size 1 armbands which are designed to fit a child from the age of 6 years to about 12 years. The smaller armbands tend to go on a child's weight, rather than age and our little lad has always been on the skinny small side (unlike me or his mum) and we were a bit concerned that they would be too large for his skinny little arms. They actually were a really good fit.
These armbands acted as a fantastic buoyancy aid for our little lad for a long time and gave him a massive amount of confidence in the water. What we liked about them in particular was that they actually 'stayed put', so when he was climbing in and out of the pool they never slid down his arms and he had confidence in the fact that they would stay where I had placed them before he'd initially got his feet wet in the water.
They are made from vinyl material which is quite a heavy gauge in my opinion, and they have a flat strap design which allowed the little lad to be able to move his arms freely and practice his swimming strokes. They are very easy and simple and quick to inflate but I have to say they were not so easy to deflate at the end of the swimming lesson. They took a bit of effort to get all of the air out.
Never once did they leak though and they were always strong and durable and the seams never showed any signs of splitting or any wear and tear. We gave them tour neighbour's daughter to use after the little lad had finished with them as he s now able to swim without any buoyancy aids at all and has full confidence in the pool.
Overall, they were definitely money well spent. They were relatively inexpensive and a high quality product that enabled our lad to get used to the water and gave him the confidence and ability to be able to learn to swim quicker than he would have done without them.
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Aqua Sphere Eagle Interchangeable Lens Goggle
by MagdaDH
I wear glasses for distance vision normally (around -3) and thus tend to become blind when swimming. I have been contemplating prescription goggles for quite a while, and treated myself to a set of these when I found reasonable deals on Amazon.
Eagle's USP is the interchangeable lenses, which means that when it's time to ... change, you only need to replace them and not the whole caboodle. Initially you need to buy the frame which comes with clear lenses and if you want corrective ones, then the lenses are bough separately.
It's not a cheap ensemble, with the frames with clear lenses around 15 GBP and each corrective lens around 10, but I think it's worth every penny. Buying these goggles changed my life (in its limited area, obviously). The ability to actually SEE in the water, under water, and particularly above water, is simply wonderful. I suppose you could get similar results from wearing normal goggles and contacts, but as I can't abide the latter, the Aqua Sphere Eagle were just the thing.
The assembly was easy, the lenses just click in and stay in place.
The quality of vision was pretty impressive. I would actually recommend the the Eagle Sphere even for people who don't need corrective goggles as the field of vision is good, the fit is comfortable (and easy to adjust) and they really keep the water out.
I was also most impressed with how long the Eagle stayed free of fogging. I used them for swimming in the sea for a whole summer as well as in the pool for close to six months after that, and they only started to fogg up in a big way after that. Incidentally, you can get a de-fogging solution from Aqua Sphere which works rather well, though in the longer run it might be cheaper to replace the lenses.
All in all, very highly recommended.
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