Diving

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, springboards were standard equipment at many ocean pools and diving competitions were an entertainment that formed a standard element of swimming carnivals.

Diving was generally regarded as a graceful activity, although part of Annette Kellerman's internationally successful swimming act was a dive she labelled the 'Australian Splosh'.

A comic diving act known as the 'Keystone Kops' was popular with spectators at Sydney tidal pools and the incomplete Newcastle Ocean Baths during World War I. In those years, only a swimming carnival featuring a famous international swimmer like Duke Kahanamoku could do without the expected diving act.

Often the pools' diving boards were removed and locked away in winter. Few pools apart from the diving basin at the Kiama Olympic pool at Pheasant Point and the Port Kembla Olympic pool were constructed specifically for diving.

There were complaints that the Wollongong Continental Baths were too shallow for safe diving. Diving injuries have occurred at the Newcastle Bogey Hole.

For safety reasons and concerns about public liability, diving is now discouraged at most ocean baths. Only  a few baths like Merewether still have diving blocks. The springboards have largely disappeared from many ocean baths but not from the Newcastle Ocean Baths.

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