Suit Up, Kuujjuaq Style

I was officially brought up to Kuujjuaq to be the assistant director of their pool but I am also working fulltime nights split between the Elder's home and the hospital. It was mentionned in emails that I would of course be prepping the pool before it was filled which I took to mean a little sweeping and hosing...WRONG. We had to repaint. This would be a simple process if a) all the paint wasn't chipping off or b) the appropriate tools ie a sandblaster to remove to the paint was available.
We (three lifeguards with zero knowledge or experience of the appropriate way to both strip paint off a pool and then re-apply) had to resort to more manual methods ie scrapers and hand sanders. Following paint removal, according to the paint cans we were given, muriatic acid had to be applied in order to etch the concrete so the fresh paint would stick. Of course none of us really new anything about the acid so we resorted to the Internet for some tips. Ha, it is apparently THE MOST DANGEROUS CHEMICAL (this was in bold and red on the website we read). For fear of our skin we went in search proper acid attire...cue arctic explorer suit found in the council basement.

It should also be noted that it has been fairly warm in Kuujjuaq, coupled with manual labour, the fact that the pool is basically a green house and that the suit is meant for use in -40 weather, things got sweaty fast.

Bring on the acid!

Pre-acid, clearly we gave up at scraping all the paint and just chipped away the loose pieces

So after we applied the acid, we diluted it with water and neutralized it with baking soda. The plan was then to just wash it down the pool drains. WRONG, again a poor assumption on our part. The drains for some faulty reason only drain water at least 2inches high. This meant we had to shop-vac up the water, lift it up out of the deep end, dump it outside (no plants will ever grow behind the pool again) and repeat (approx 30 times)
All of this just to prep to paint a pool that will be open for only 8weeks...