Homemade Waterproof Underwater Swimming Timer for Fastlane Pool – Part 1

I know that title may seem redundant, but all of those attributes were important for a clock of some sort for my pool. One of the many advantages of my Tuff Pool (click here to read about my first swim in it) with its Fastlane current generator is that I can place a timer right in front of me and always see it. I don’t have to count laps, and I don’t have to change my stroke at the end of a lane. I can keep swimming as long as I want to, pretending that I am in a river in the woods or in the ocean at the beach.

My husband was the one doing the shopping, because the timer was on my Christmas list.  Since he is an engineer, he was sure he could come up with something that was much less expensive than what he saw on the market, so

• he bought a water resistant kitchen timer with a bold display for about $23 (General Tools TI110 Jumbo Display Waterproof Timer)
  (as opposed to the special underwater timers for no less than $100)

He wrapped it up and gave it to me for Christmas, but was quick to point out that there was more we had to do to make it pool ready.

The idea was to get some clean sand from his stash in the workshop.  This is clean, white sand used for making extra white cement.  He didn’t want anything with pokey rocks in it.

• He brought me about 1.5 cups of the sand, to be vacuum sealed into a bag.  I skipped the vacuum step, because I was concerned the sand would get suck up into my new toy practical kitchen machine, so just pushed out as much air as I could, then sealed the bag.

  

I went right out to the pool  (in our now balmy 45 degree February weather, if you want to see my full-body winter swimsuit, click here) to test the set-up. Unfortunately, it floated on top of the water.  We were still missing the underwater capability.

I got permission to take a few very smooth round rocks into the pool.  One of my daughters was standing by as photographer, so she wiped them clean of dirt and handed them to me in the pool.

• I had to work a bit to hold the timer-in-the-bag down on the bottom with one hand, while swimming with a rock in my other hand, but what’s wrong with a little variety in your workout routine? 😉

I finally got it all positioned without crushing the timer.

It was somewhat challenging to read the display from my swimming position, but since I didn’t need to look at it constantly, it worked well enough.  When I wanted to, I could swim close enough to glance at it.  It was nice to have an idea of how long I was actually swimming without having to stop and check my watch or count strokes.  I was able to relax and enjoy the swimming, as well as think about form.

When I reported to Greg, I found he had been problem solving since I had asked for rocks.

• He asked how tall I thought a stand should be so that I could see the display more easily and still not hit it with my arms.  Such a stand would serve as a weight, too.

He soon showed up to measure my arms.  That same afternoon, he came up with a prototype stand.  It is a piece of PVC pipe bent and filled with sand.  Stay tuned to see how it all ends up!

Part 2 about my underwater swimming timer