Get help in Spanish speaking countries, swimming

Swimming pool (piscina in Spanish) at a Parador hotel on La Palma. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Spanish - English

ambulancia - ambulance

ayuda - aid / help

cara - face (I remember a in face and cara, like two cheeks, letter a twice)

caro - expensive (I remember, oh no, too expensive, ends in Spanish with the letter o)

gorro de baño - bath cap

Gorro de ducha - shower cap

necesito - I need

no - no / don't

no fumar - no smoking )literally no to smoke - infinitive

sombrero de natación - swimming hat

policia - police

¿tienes? - Do you have ... ?

English - Spanish

bath cap - gorro de baño

life guard - socorrista (life guard running to help, letter r twice, like the English word succour)

shower cap - gorro de ducha

swimming hat - sombrero de natación

Useful phrases are in

translate Spanish (google)

Wikitravel phrasebook Spanish (without ads)

Wikivoyage phrasebook Spanish (with ads)

See my previous post on mouth ulcers and a pharmacy in La Palma, in the Canary islands

Glitch free packing list

SPORTS/WALKING

 All Weather Clothes & Bags

Walking sticks

Ski poles

Boots

Sandals

Thick socks

Second clothes set 

Washing line/pegs/laundry soap

goggles

sunglasses

sun visor

warm hat

light hat

hat elastic and two safety pins and sewing kit

Zips sewn in or safety pinned in 

Or security pockets in clothes

bandanna

Scarf

White at night headwear

Visible jacket/ radar device for location in avalanche

Visible swimsuit (not blue or green)

swimhat or attached swimhat

roaming plan/local phone/ power cable, power storage

ELECTRONICS

Mobile phone

Backup phone or send password phone

Extension lead with multiple sockets

Laptop or Ipad with keyboard

Power brick and lead

DOCUMENTS/SECURITY

Contact list at destination

Contact list at home

Emergency numbers, insurance, breakdown cover, medical

Car safety kit

Car overseas requirements (headlamp dimmers etc - check what is needed and allow time to buy online and for delivery)\

Tickets

Passports

Printed hotel bookings (in case of internet failure or phone failure or lost or stolen phone)

Insurance details with family at home (in case you have an accident and they need to bring you home)

Doorbell camera so you can watch for deliveries, burglars, gardeners etc

ENTERTAINMENT

Films or music on phone or laptop, or links if you don't want to fill your phone

Card games

Table games

Tennis racquets and balls, table tennis

Chess and draughts, backgammon, Scrabble etc

Paints and drawing materials and sketchbook

DAY CLOTHES

One outfit for travelling, loose

One outfit for touring

Cover scarf or jacket for churches and temples

Jacket with 

EVENING CLOTHES

Smart shoes, socks or tights

Anti-mosquito scarf or jacket and leg covering

COSMETICS

Lipstick,/lip balm,

Eye shadow/ eye drops

Spot cover

Moisturizer

Shampoo and conditoner

Anti mosquito spray

PICNIC/FOOD/DRINK

Sandwich and water for journey

Cup to avoid drinking from shared bottles

Cool box, insulated lunch box, ice pack

Wine saver pouches (brand name Platypreserve)

Two plates, knives, forks, cutter/army knife

Corkscrew/bottle opener tin opener

MEDICATION

Insect repellent

\PILLS - contraceptives/medication/pillbox/prescription

Spectacles/reading glasses/Sunglasses/Goggles/Sighted goggles/Prescription printed and on phone

First Aid kit/plasters, sting relief

USEFUL APPS

Step counter

Calorie counter

Google Maps

Street View

Home address in car satnav and mobile phone

SECURITY

Doorcam to show deliveries whilst you are away

If reporting on your travels, either wait until you get back and save your diary in a Word document to upload later, and/or turn your Facebook to friends/family only - asking immediate family not to comment on your whereabouts in the media

Even if you have a house sitter and dog at home, or home-swaps or lodgers, you don't want strangers and ne'er-do-wells ringing the doorbell or invading the property and alarming your house sitter.

Please save (bookmark) and share your favourite posts from this blog and my other blogs.

How to make an emergency swimming hat?

Problems
You arrive at a hotel or holiday home and need a swimming hat. You have forgotten yours, or it has split. Eventually in a hot country the plastery ones go sticky and stick together. The elastic edged ones go loose.

Your hair is long. It's dangerous to have loose long hair in a Jacuzzi (spa bath) because the underwater suction holes could reverse in the interval and drag your hair underwater.

A girl in the UK nearly drowned and was only saved because a handy life guard was able to give her under water berths until somebody came to the rescue with a knife or scissor.

For safety, and health many swimming pools require hats. Sometimes they say for everybody (females mostly). Sometimes they specify if your hair is longer than ear length. It's obviously easier for them to check everybody has a hat which you can see from a distance on a monitor. They don't have time and energy to get out a tape measure, measuring everybody's hair. Nor would they want to get into an argument about whose hair is longer, shorter, too long. Easier for them to see if somebody is wearing a swimming hat.

Why else are hats needed? To stop you losing your hair grips. To keep in your set.

To stop hair spray making grease on the water. To keep out nits (head lice) of schoolchildren and others.

To stop the chlorine or other substances cleansing the water from damaging your hair.

To keep hair dry so it looks better and does not wet your clothes. So you don't have to spend hours drying your hair keeping others waiting.

Sometimes in a big swimming pool there's a shop selling swimming hats. They might be the wrong size, feel plastic and uncomfortable.

Answers
Your options:
1 Buy Spares / Bulk
Stock up with two or three spare black hats which go with all costumes for all members of the family. (Stock up for a group of friends or school outing or club. Buy in bulk and get a discount.) Stock up with assorted colours so you have one to match every costume.

2 Take a hotel shower cap. Use it as a base. Cover it with spare material from:
An old swimming costume (one you never wear because it is las year's fashion or too small).
A cheap any size swimsuit sold off cheaply out of season in a charity shop.
Material bought from the fabric department of a major department store or craft store such as Spotlight in Singapore and Australasia.
Ideally you want waterproof material. But if you just want to fulfil requirements and not look like you are wearing a shower cap, any fabric covering will do if you are keeping your head out of the water.

3 Use the hotel shower cap as a template.

Repairing Swimhats
If your swim hat is the shower cap shape with elastic around the edge, when it goes loose, tighten it by folding it over into a small pleat at the back and sew with a few inconspicuous cotton stitches.

How To Find Sewing Implements
Use your hotel sewing kit. If they don't have one, ask the receptionist if you can borrow a needle and white cotton. In a five star hotel the staff can call housekeeping or valet service to sew on a button or do a small repair. They might make a charge or you might leave a tip, or even just a thank you and a good review on TripAdvisor which managements seem to value more.

In a large group, probably another member has a sewing kit. They might not want to part with a sewing kit. But they might wait while you sew, to reclaim their needle, even do the sewing for you.

Short of cotton? Pull a thread from another garment. Use your hair if you have long hair. Use a piece of dental floss. Ask hotel reception for a piece of cotton.

On one occasion when I needed cotton I had the chutzpah to ask a hotel reception for a sewing kit and I wasn't staying at that hotel, just visiting for lunch with a friend. If you have a friend staying at a hotel, they might have a sewing kit they don't need. It might be sitting undiscovered in the drawer.

At one hotel I went without sewing for several days and was considering complaint on the hotel feedback form and on TripAdvisor. I wondered whether people in the grander suites had sewing kits. (Sometimes you can see from the trolley of the people who make up the room which items are given to the expansive suites.)

When I went down to the reception desk, they told me that the room had a sewing kit. It was in the plastic box in the wardrobe (Americans call that a closet).

Bye, bye. I'm off to sew a swimming hat.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Author of How to get out of the mess you're in. Please share my posts.