Pool types

For the purpose of this project, ocean baths include:
- 'Natural' or 'found' baths
Pools produced by natural processes or showing little apparent human intervention that have been recognised, designated and used as bathing places and have recognised access paths labelled or mapped. Examples include Figure 8 pool, Currarong pools.

- Ring-of-rocks pools.
Rocks arranged on sand which define a recognised bathing place, even if originally intended for, produced by, or modified by some other purpose. Examples include Newcastle Soldiers Baths, Copacabana Pool, Bronte Bogey Hole, South Maroubra Rock Pools, Mollymook Bogey Hole.

- Minimalist ocean baths
Irregularly shaped bathing pools involving minimal excavation and construction like Wollongong's Nuns Baths.

- Classic ocean baths
A range of baths associated with rocky ocean shores or surf beaches including formed concrete baths located in the tidal zone, excavations/indentations in rock, perhaps augmented with walls of cement or concrete to define a bathing place, and complexes of baths and associated building. Examples include Newcastle Bogey Hole, The Entrance Ocean Baths, Bondi Icebergs pool, Wylies Baths.

Types of seawater and tidal pools that do not fit this project's strict definition of ocean baths include:
- pools off the beach
A seawater pool sited back from the sea and beach, perhaps on a hill above the sea or even indoors. (Examples include Newcastle's Corporation Baths, Coogee Aquarium, Thirroul Olympic Pool, Port Kembla Olympic Pool).

- netted enclosures or other forms of bathing pools linked to a breakwater
Examples include the Tuncurry  Rock Pool and the  tidal pools located within Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay or coastal rivers.

Shapes of ocean baths
Different uses eventually demanded different styles of pools. Rectangular pools of standard 50 metre competition length with marked lanes are best for competitive swimming, but a rectangular competition space may be located in a large round or irregular shaped pool as at the Bronte Baths. Pool shapes include:
- Rounded
(examples include the Mollymook Bogey Hole, Bronte Bogey Hole, South Maroubra rock pools, Newcastle Soldiers Baths, Copacabana pool and Newcastle's Canoe Pool).
- Figure 8 as in the Figure 8 pool.
- Triangular as in the Fairy Bower pool.
- Rectangular lap pools like the Bondi Icebergs pool or the Merewether Ocean Baths.
- Irregular shapes like Wollongong' s Nuns Baths.

Further Information

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