charlie
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underwater rugbyWas invited by a work colleague (who introduced me to the dive club) to play UW rugby tonight. Decided that I might as well... good traditional way to spend Burns' Night!
Went along to the pool and got decked out. Then we all went into the sauna to warm up before the game! Borrowed pool fins & hat. Will need to collect my pool fins from UK next week. Jumped in & had a swim about. Ooh... that's a deep pool... 4.2m to be precise.
It's a funny old game.
They use a spherical ball (about the size of a cantaloupe melon) which is filled with some salt solution to be marginally negatively buoyant. Idea is to get it into opposition's goal (surprise surprise). "Goal" is actually a big basket (like an oversized waste paper basket) sitting on the bottom. It was really good fun. It's a lot less skilful & more physical than octopush. It suits those who can hold their breath for a while. Defending basically consists of sitting with your arse plugging the basket! You can be held under when you're in possession of the ball. I got held down (from behind!) for about 30 sec at the bottom at one point. Was quite disconcerting as it takes a while to surface from that depth with empty lungs!
I really enjoyed it & managed to score 5 goals. They seemed a bit surprised & have invited me to their more serious session on Tuesday night. Some of you guys should come out here to try it... it's fun... gus, where are you? 
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gus
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good stuff, that sounds ideal for yourself 'the lungs' mcgurk,
i shall have to make sure i get along when i come and visit you.
interesting to hear it requires less skill, couldnt really figure it out before but basically who can hold their breath for longest makes sense.
keep you pushing fitness up.
cheers
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charlie
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Cheers, gus 
Also, you can also keep possession of the ball & make your way up to the surface for a breath before duck-diving back down. I think you guys would enjoy it. Think I'll miss pushing though. Apparently there are 2 or 3 ex-pushers from Orkney that play here: maybe we can start a revolution!
The weirdest bit of the whole night was sitting in the sauna with a bunch of naked Norwegians!
Hopefully going for my first boat dive here tomorrow.
Do you know that I still haven't got my deposit back from Dive Safari for our cancelled Dunbar dive from November! Buggers!! 
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joe
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sounds fun, do they have mixed sex sauna's 
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charlie
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| joe wrote: | | sounds fun, do they have mixed sex sauna's |
you'll have to come to see!
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