From the nineteenth century into the 1960s, voluntary labour (working bees, perhaps organised by a swimming, surf club or progress association or as a collective effort by groups of residents) created many ocean pools. Sometimes, even a one-man working bee create an ocean pool.

Working bees were a sensible arrangement in communities with ample skills and labour, but little spare money. Working bees also helped create schools, churches, war memorials and homes for returned servicemen.

Where pool projects proved to be beyond the scope of working bees, assistance was sought from council or government grants.

Community support for working bee could take the form of:

• donation of materials or tools,
• printing the names of the volunteer workers in the local newspapers,
• newspaper articles urging support for the working bee,
• 
ladies providing  afternoon tea for the male workers, and
• 
donations of kegs of beer by the local hotel.

Coastal communities are still quick to remind their councils that voluntary labour embodied in the ocean pool gives the community a stake in the management of the pool and grounds for resisting plans to impose charges at the pool or neglect maintenance of the pool.

Ocean pools invariably occupy beautiful sites with great views, places where people like to linger, sunbake and swim. There are still plenty of suitable sites close to populated areas still available even now.

Ease of development/construction was clearly a consideration in siting some pools. Formalised town planning skills and  scientific advice no help in selecting appropriate sites for ocean pools.

Some considerations relevant to pool siting are:

1. North side of a bay or south side of a bay?
Most pools developed on the side of bays and harbours, where the prevailing summer winds cause less wave action.

2. Headland or mid-beach?
It is easier to create ocean pools where there are rocks and rocky headlands are more common than rocky outcrops in the middle of a surf beach,

3. Part of the beach or away from the sandy beach?
Ocean pools sited away from the beach are generally older than pools sited near the beach, created before bathing from the ocean beaches was fashionable.

The ever-increasing barrage of signs at ocean baths  relates to the:

• opening times and entry charges at some supervised pools,
• 
supervision arrangements at the pool and when they operate
• available facilities (e.g. facilities for persons with disabilities),
• 
water quality and pollution hazards,
• shared pool use (the times when part of the pool has been reserved for club, carnival or school use),
• pool cleaning and maintenance (notices about the times when the pool is closed or scheduled for cleaning),
-
• behaviour expected of pool users in and around the pool in the interest of safety and cleanliness (e.g. No dogs, No fishing, No spearfishing, No fish cleaning, No smoking, No glass and in some cases restrictions on drinking of alcohol),
• 
First Aid and resuscitation signs (where to call for emergency help, locations of emergency buzzers and ambulance access, instructions on resuscitation methods),
• environmental protection concerns (such as a ban on collecting shellfish  or the boundaries of an intertidal protection area), and
• special risks at some pools (e.g. slippery rocks, or blue-ringed octopus).

One of the problems with the barrage of signage at the ocean pools is that it makes those pools seem more dangerous than the open beach, when in fact they are a far safer swimming environment. Signs alone are of course unlikely to convince anyone who underestimates the power of a rip, that they would be safer swimming in the ocean pool than on the open beach.

Neither the ocean pools nor the ocean beaches can offer a swimming environment as safe and controllable as a backyard swimming pool. Children and adults accustomed to non-tidal pools may need to be taught about safety issues at ocean pools and other tidal pools just as they are taught about the need to swim between the flags at patrolled beaches and other beach safety issues. That requires more than a set of signs.

Shells on the beach were a nineteenth century tourist attraction. Oyster shells and barnacles on the walls of the ocean pools cut and scratched bathers, who often demanded that councils remove the shells from their pool.

Concerns for the conservation of wildlife on the rock platforms means there are now restrictions on the taking of shelled animals in many areas.

Waves can and do wash small sharks into ocean pools, though this is less common than fishers and pranksters putting large or small sharks into ocean pools to scare bathers.

The shark is still seen as a dangerous predator in Australia and South Africa. Fear of being attacked by sharks was one of the reasons people in colonial times preferred to swim in rock baths, rather than from the open beach. (Other reasons included a lack of swimming skills and a fear of big waves and strong currents as well as bans in many coastal communities on daylight surf bathing, although not on swimming in ocean baths screened from public view.)

Coastal communities contributed to the risk of shark attacks by putting shark bait into the water in the form of animal carcasses, waste from abattoirs and other industrial processes as well as whaling and fishing. Where garbage was taken out to sea on barges for disposal in deep ocean waters, some garbage washed back into shallow waters and up onto the beaches.

In game fishing areas, the captured fish (including sharks) were often not eaten. Their carcasses were usually simply tossed back into the sea.

The development of the surf lifesaving movement offered some protection against sharks, as did development of a shark netting programs.

When spearfishing became popular after World War II, the spearfishers soon realised that many species of sharks commonly regarded as ‘maneaters’ were dangerous only when attacked. Growing numbers of scuba divers and surfers began to distinguish between the different varieties of sharks and see themselves as visitors to the shark’s world. Along with a growth in marine science, this contributed to a greater understanding of the shark’s ecological role. 

As interest in marine conservation grew, more people became convinced that the sea required sharks, just as human communities required the garbage collectors and believed that continuing slaughter of sharks would upset the balance of nature. Far from being man-eaters, the placid, slow-moving, grey nurse sharks became regarded as quite graceful in the water and tagged the ‘Labradors of the sea’ or ‘nature’s vacuum cleaners’.

Any shark alarm still clears people rapidly from the water at surf beaches. Spotter planes can identify sharks near beaches and relay warnings to lifesavers, who can set off their shark alarms as needed.

Some once-feared species of sharks are now protected as endangered species. Shark meshing has become a debatable practice, because of the sharks and other animals killed by shark nets. Efforts made to deter animals from becoming entangled in the nets include attaching pingers to warn marine life such as dolphins and whales about the existence of the nets.

The greatest threat to the endangered sharks is now accidental capture by recreation and commercial fishers as fishing hooks in a shark’s mouth may prove fatal.