One day this summer, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to be exercising every time I got in my pool. Sometimes, I could just relax and cool off. But total relaxation is not optimum when it would result is me laying under the water. There are no steps or levels in the 4 foot deep pool. Putting my arms up on the edges to float my body on the surface only worked if I kept kicking. Otherwise, the physics of the situation was that my head slipped off the rounded edge and I was submersed.
Then, I realized that though it was only a 9 x 17 pool, two or three floating mats of some sort would probably fit. Laying on the grassy slope was okay, but it often got too hot quickly. However, I was not thrilled with the idea of nearly passing out blowing up an air mattress every time I wanted to relax. Or going through the work of decompressing it for storage. Or sticking to the plastic or foam when I was sweaty.
Nonetheless, my excitement about the idea of floating in my pool, inspired me to look at floating mattresses anyway. Low and behold, someone had designed a floating hammock! The picture caught my eye, but I was skeptical until I read the reviews. I ordered 2 with my birthday money.
When they arrived, I was immediately impressed with their packaging. They were spring loaded to fold into a steering wheel sized circle, then tucked into a thin plastic case. That must be the travel option that people had mentioned in the reviews.
My 17 year old daughter was in charge of inflating them this first time, so she tried the electric pump. It seemed slow, so she changed to just blowing them up with her own lungs and mouth. She said the second method was easier.
Getting on the hammock while it was in the pool was probably not any trickier than getting on any floating object that can skip away when it feels pressure on once side. It did fold into the water when I first sat on it, but popped right back up when I lay myself out horizontally. I am 5 foot 9 inches tall and I hung over the ends of it just a bit, but I was very comfortable. It says the weight limit is 250 pounds. I currently weigh in at 140. The hammock did not require any balancing act and I did not feel like I was constantly going to tip over.
The body does lay down in a couple of inches of water. Since one of the main ideas of the pool in the heat is to cool off, I don’t see a problem with this. In fact, I think I will like it. I get tired of having to constantly splash water around on hot spots. With the mesh being the main part under the body, the water filters right through to the pool if any “extra” gets on top. This mesh fabric did not cling to my skin at all.
Getting out of the hammock was entertaining. Not much chance of doing this gracefully, but oh well. Laughter is good for the soul.
Now, I am looking forward to the next 100°F day. Sure, I’ll get my chores done, but I will spend some time floating in my hammock. If anyone wants to join me, now there are another 5 hammocks. I saw right away that I could use more.
In fact, some of my girls, my mom, and my friend all showed up to help me test how many would really fit in the pool. When no one is in them, the hammocks take up more surface space.
When bodies are in the hammocks, 6 people can easily fit in the pool and even play bumper hammocks. When they aren’t dozing, of course.