by Elayne Peters, Aquatics Director
This is my 15th summer as OSRUI Aquatics Director! I am responsible for both our swimming and
boating programs. During the rest of the year I live in a suburb of Detroit where I work at a sport club teaching swimming and training triathletes.
OSRUI offers a comprehensive aquatics program on two fronts: our fabulous pools and beautiful Lac La Belle.
The Lillian and Larry Goodman Aquatics Center features 3 pools for fun and instruction. There’s a lap pool, a shallow pool for instructional swim, and the “fun” pool with volleyball, basketball, and other games. And then there’s the water slides: two double helix slides that even our non-swimmers can enjoy because they run out into long chutes rather than the pool. At the start of each session, campers are tested and placed into swimming groups. Our goal is for non-swimmers to learn how to swim and for others to improve their skills and strokes. Campers have both instructional and free swim six days a week (weather permitting). In addition, several mornings each week we have early morning swim practice available for our campers who are competitive swimmers, and lifeguarding classes are offered to campers in Chalutzim. On Shabbat, the pool closes and everyone can enjoy swimming in the lake!
Our boating program is also run six days a week (weather permitting) and features water skiing, sailing, kayaking, and pontoon boats. We just added Laser sail boats to our fleet! Everyone gets a chance to try waterskiing (weather permitting) and campers in some units can sign up for water skiing or sailing as a chug (elective). Pontoon rides are a great cabin/tent activity!
All of these activities are run by our fabulous, dedicated aquatics staff. All are certified lifeguards, and our swim teachers are WSI (Water Safety Instructor) certified as well. While the lifeguards are there to assure everyone’s safety, we also use the buddy system. Every camper enters the water with a buddy as an added safety measure and also just to assure that everyone has a friend to swim with.
We all love getting to know the campers and watching them learn and have fun in the water!