Sibu : Swimming Pools

My family moved to Sibu in 1956 when Sibu did not have any swimming pool . Although my father was an avid swimmer and was even in his college swimming team, he was not able to teach us, his children to swim. We actually learned our swimming from our aunts and uncles in Nang Chong. The Rajang River was our swimming pool.

My mother was a great swimmer too when she was young.

So when SUDC proposed to have a swimming pool built in Bukit Lima he was very excited. He thought that it was truly modernization of Sibu. And he excitedly told us that he would teach the rest of us to swim. My younger sister, eventually became a swimming coach for her school.

in November 1963 the Sibu Swimming pool at Bukit lima was completed at a cost of RM0.5 million and handed over to the Council for maintenance after its completion.

It was warmly welcome by the Sibu public and it became quite a place to be seen. Many courting couples went there for outings and even newly engaged couples used the swimming pool as their venue for pre wedding photography, besides having a dip in the pool.

A very faded photo of the Bukit Lima Swimming Pool

In 1964 the Council added a canteen building for the needs of pool patrons at a cost of RM50,000. For many years the Methodist School tried its best to groom swimmers but the best swimmers came from Sacred Heart School. Some of the selected swimmers from Sibu became Sarawak representatives and we were so proud of them.

From 1963 to 1975, many British soldiers and Gurkhas swam in the pool. So girl students were scared to go. Probably because of that, many of us did not advance in our swimming prowess.

Those were the years when some women wearing bikinis and tiny swimming suits paraded up and down the swimming pool, and enjoyed themselves at the canteen.

There were tales of ghosts at night since the swimming pool was quite near the cemetery.

The swimming pool was closed  in 1993 for major renovation. It was open much later.

The swimming pool at Delta Estate, the second swimming pool in Sibu was completed in April 1993 at a coThe first olympic sized Swimming Pool at Bukit Lima was completed by the Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR)st of about RM5.1 millions, which came in the form of a grant from Ministry of Social Development.