The Unknown Florida

I already mentioned that we started our nightly bike rides when all public swimming pools in Tallahassee closed in March 2020 as Covid started to rear its ugly head. The city pools were closed for about two months and the Florida State University (FSU) outdoor pool, the Morcom Aquatics Center where the FSU swimming and diving teams train, closed to the public for more than a year. Unless they are part of an aquatic theme park, few people consider swimming pools noteworthy attractions in Florida. Yet here I beg to differ: Swimming pools in Tallahassee have an interesting past and present. Of course, in the Sunshine State swimming is an integral part of high-school and college athletics and Florida produces an above average share, in quantity and quality, of world-class aquatic athletes. On the more sinister site, the City of Tallahassee closed all public swimming pools in July 1964 for more than two years after the passage of the Civil Right Act to resist integration.

Yes, going to the pool can offer surprises, as we learned a couple of years ago. We learned that Great Britain does not have a single outdoor diving facility! Ah, the British weather… That was in 2016 before the summer olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the British Diving team was training at the Morcom Aquatics Center to practice how to dive outdoors during the day and at night under floodlight. They also worked on their tan, of course. While we were lap swimming in the competition pool, Olympians like Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow were training in the diving well. In fact, the British Diving team is coming to FSU once or twice a year to train outdoors and enjoy the sun. In what city can you watch olympic divers train while you swim your laps? Of course, in Tallahassee. This year they were here for the month of October and again, we watched them diving. However, this time I realized that the lighting conditions are almost perfect for sports photography in the fall early evening hours. The diving platform at Morcom faces East, meaning that in the evening the sun sets behind the diving platform, and there is no obstruction (just the FSU golf course). Perfect conditions for unique photographs. Find two photos below. I consider those perhaps some of the best photos I ever took; there is a pinch of Helmut Newton in both of them.