Deep sea hunter fishes underwater for five minutes - on one breath

by Scott Carmichael (RSS feed) on Jan 24th 2011 at 12:30PM

At this depth, Indonesian sea bed hunter Sulbin has an immense amount of pressure above him. Sulbin is a Bajau fisher - a member of an ever decreasing tribe of sea nomads that spend their entire life out at sea. Bajau are born at sea, will live at sea, and will die at sea.

These sea gypsies live in Malaysia and Indonesia. They live on houseboats or in stilt houses off the shores. So much of their time is spent in the water, they often feel landsick when they are on dry land.Because of the pressure from diving, these divers will intentionally rupture their eardrums at an early age - which essentially makes them partially deaf, a high price to pay for ensuring a good catch. The deep dives even change their eye muscles increasing their underwater eyesight.

The catch varies from area to area - some dive for food, others are after pearls or sea cucumbers. To make their job productive, many of these divers will have to make hundreds of dives a year.

The clip is part of the BBC/Discovery produced "Human Planet". To learn more about the show, and the challenges involved with creating this amazing footage, check out the Human Planet blog.