Yes, it does exist, and Seán and I have now played it. Only once though, so sorry to those of you in the know if I mess up any of the following interpretations of the rules and regulations!
It’s played wearing snorkelling gear and a coloured swimming cap to distinguish between teams. The goals are similar to big flower pots and are weighted to sit at the bottom of a five metre pool. The ball is a small basketball filled with salt water to weight it so as it drops to the bottom of the pool at just the correct speed. Tackles are allowed anywhere bar a players flippers, though if the tackled player is feeling a little lacking in the oxygen department they can just drop the ball and must be released so they can swim back to the surface. The ball has to stay below the surface of the water to avoid a turnover.
It’s a very strange but pretty cool game to play (bar when my ears hurt once I went below 4m). There is a real 3D aspect to it as you can not only be tackled from the side but also from above or below you. As this was only the third time Seán and I had ever been snorkelling it was pretty hard work. My efforts generally involved waiting for a good moment, trying to do something useful and then swimming as fast as I could for the surface again where I floated panting for air for a while! I had one moment of almost glory though when I got the ball at about half way and everyone else had gone to the surface for air, so I swam my heart out despite the protests of my lungs and just as I was about to put the ball in the basket to score Emma arrived in between me and the basket. Very mean of her I thought! I spent quite a bit of time on the surface recovering from that effort!
After playing Underwater Rugby, I think I might fare a little better playing Underwater Hockey, as they only use a two metre deep pool for that so my ears might not complain as much. It was good fun though, even if we were lured to the pool on the pretence that we could just go for an ordinary swim at surface level while the others played rugby!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment