TEHACHAPI, Calif -- It’s been over a year and a half since the doors of the Dye Natatorium have been open and the pool has been filled and on Thursday the pool officially reopened.

The Tehachapi High School swim team was anxious to dive right in.

Swimmer Bryan Smith said, "Just seeing everyone here, being able to swim in front of everyone, show off a little bit, it was great.”

Swimmer Kathleen Chung agreed. “It’s definitely been a really good feeling to be back in the water and back where we can get back into shape and get back into the competition,” said Chung.

It was no easy feat to get the pool up and running. It took the city, community and parks and rec department coming together and pouring their time, money and energy into the pool.

Joe Curry who is the utility manger for the city of Tehachapi said, "It was both a financial and an undertaking to get everything scheduled to coordinate local agencies to get people in place to get it back open.”

And while everyone is excited to have the community pool back open, no group is more excited then the swim team that has been forced to do land drills for the last two months of their season because there was no pool to practice in.

Swimmer Colleen Chung said, “We’ve been running around doing strength exercises and strength building and pretty much doing what swimmers don’t do, go on land.”

Now that the team is back in the water, it’s back to business and time to catch up on their missed pool time.

Smith said, "It just means we have to work harder. And if we’re going to take league this year, we’re just going to have to be in the pool all the time.”

Because of the late start, the team had to pull out of their first meet of the season this weekend, but the team is optimistic the late start won’t put a damper on their season.

Swim coach Brian Patton said, "This team’s got a lot of heart, so I think we’ll do well this year. My goals are still win league, boys and girls.”

The teams first meet of the season will be next Thursday against Bakersfield Christian.

The pool will open for the Barracuda Youth swim team and lap swim on April 1.