Water Safety Around Your Holiday Lodge

This guide is designed to help you observe good water safety around your holiday lodge with a few potentially life-saving tips.

Summer breaks more often than not involve cooling down with a refreshing dip. Whether it be a paddling pool outside your lodge, a hot tub, a swimming pool, a lake, a river or the majestic sea that calls you, all bodies of water can represent fatal dangers. It is worth taking this time to remind yourself of the dangers as awareness is the key to good water safety.

General water safety

  • Watch kids when they are in or around water, without being distracted
  • You are your family’s lifeguard. Keep young children within arm’s reach of an adult
  • Never leave your child unattended around water. Children can drown in as little as 2cm of water
  • Swim with any children in your care – it’s more fun and you can keep them close and safe

Water safety around your holiday lodge and garden

  • Securely cover all water storage tanks and drains
  • Empty paddling pools, containers, buckets and watering cans, as soon as they have been used
  • Always turn paddling pools and containers upside down once empty, so they do not collect water
  • Securely cover all hot tubs and home spas as soon as possible after use
  • Make sure older children are accompanied every time when they paddle, swim or use hot tubs
  • Always install self-closing and self-latching gates, fences of at least four feet tall surrounding all sides of any pool, and locks to prevent children from gaining access to home pools or pools of water
  • Install secure fencing around garden ponds (at least four feet high) to act as a barrier or add mesh or a grill on top of the pond (strong enough to support a child’s weight without dropping below the surface of the pond water)
  • Always turn hosepipes off at the tap, so children cannot fill vessels themselves

Safety around swimming pools

  • Follow the pool rules
  • Check whether there is a lifeguard on duty and where they are
  • Take time to check the depth, water flow and layout of pools
  • Never enter the water or supervise weak swimmers or children after drinking alcohol
  • Keep a torpedo buoy and a stick near your pool and keep the poolside free of trip hazards.

Water safety on the beach and in open water

  • Check when the tide will be high and low and make sure that you won’t be cut off from the beach exit by the rising tide. Also be aware of dangerous rip-currents
  • Do not swim near to or dive from rocks, piers, breakwater or coral
  • Swim parallel to the beach and close to the shore
  • Check bathing sites for hazards, check the safest places to swim and always read the signs – find out what local warning signs and flags mean
  • Do not use inflatables in open water – Inflatable dinghies or lilos are a well-known hazard – each year there are a high number of incidents where people on inflatables are blown out to sea.
  • Do your research – check the safety arrangements of any water-based activities and if there is lifeguard or rescue cover and know what to do and who to call in an emergency
  • Remember: Don’t go too far, go with a friend, it is colder than it looks, it is stronger than it looks and swim near lifeguards whenever possible.

Avoiding accidents

A significant proportion of accidents involving water happen to people who never intended to enter the water. Be aware when you are walking on beaches of the tidal times and pay attention to the geography so as not to get cut off by encroaching sea or caught out by a sudden drop in shallow waters.

Take care near all water sides, from river and canal banks to swimming pools. It is a good idea to walk with a stick or cane to reach with if you know you will be walking by water.

Consider learning lifesaving skills yourself and try to encourage those around you to do the same or at least to learn to swim or perhaps improve their swimming. You can find information here on life saving courses in your area.

Following these tips should help you to enjoy the water around your holiday lodge safely, feeling relaxed and assured.

This is a marketing article from My Holiday Home Insurance, a specialist provider of insurance for holiday homes, leisure homes, holiday lodges and static caravans. Our team of experienced advisers are always happy to help, so for more information call our Northampton office on freephone 0800 988 0890.

To stay up to date with similar topics, please like and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.