Six adults are on the swim platform. Music, laughter, a tender coming alongside. The three-year-old in the pink armbands slips between two guests and into the water without a sound. Nobody hears a splash. Every one of those six adults later says the same sentence: I thought someone else was watching.
What drowning actually looks like
Drowning is silent, fast and undramatic. A drowning child cannot shout - the airway is doing something more urgent. There is no thrashing, no waving, no cry for help. A small child can be face-down and unconscious in under a minute and can drown in water shallower than they are tall. This is the single most important fact in this course.
The supervision rules
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Constant visual supervision | Eyes on the child, not on the horizon, not on your phone, not mid-conversation |
| Arms reach for under-fives | Close enough to touch, near any water, always |
| The designated watcher | One named adult, water watch only, no other task, handed over verbally |
| Never assume | If you did not hear someone say "I have them", nobody has them |
| Count heads | Out loud, by name, on entering and leaving the water and every few minutes |
| Two crew for swimming | One in the water, one on deck with eyes up and a throwing aid to hand |
The designated watcher
The watcher is a role, not an intention. It is handed over by name, out loud, and accepted out loud: "Maria, you have Leo on water watch." "I have Leo." If you must leave - toilet, phone, a guest asking for something - you do not leave until someone has taken the watch verbally. If nobody can take it, the children come out of the water. That is always an available answer.
Life jackets and buoyancy aids
- Non-swimmers wear a correctly sized life jacket near open water and on any open deck under way, and every child wears one in a tender, without exception.
- Armbands, rings, floats and inflatables are toys, not safety equipment. They fail, they slip off, they invert a toddler face-down.
- Fit by weight and chest size, not age. Check the crotch strap. Lift by the shoulders - if it rides up over the ears, it is too big.
- A life jacket is a backstop for supervision, never a substitute for it.
Swimming ability
Assess it yourself, in calm water, close in. Open water is not a swimming pool: there is current, chop, cold, depth and distance. A child who swims a length of a heated pool may not survive twenty metres of open sea.
If a parent will not allow the rule
Explain once, plainly, in terms of drowning. If they still refuse, tell the chief stew, and the chief stew tells the captain. The captain has absolute authority over safety on board. You do not compromise, and you never leave a child unattended near water because it was awkward to insist.
Onboard Notes
Rehearse the sentence now, so it is ready: "I am sorry, I cannot let her in the water without the jacket - if she goes under, I will not see it and I will not reach her in time."
Preparatory study only. These lessons are not a childcare qualification and are not first aid training. Caring for children at sea requires a recognised childcare qualification and a current, practically assessed paediatric first aid certificate from an approved provider.