I saw a video on YouTube recently from an independent content creator who went to look for these mythical sea nomads, and apparently what he found was that the idyllic scene of a remote tribe living off the land with highly refined but primitive fishing techniques was largely fabricated.<p>The locals were alegedly just going along with the westerner film makers, partly because in their eyes, participating in a mockumentary was an amusing opportunity that doesn't come along every day.<p>He then tried to get them to show him how they <i>really</i> fish, and it turns out they use modern gear like flippers and wet suits but also do incredibly dangerous things like breathing out of a tube connected to a machine on a small boat in the middle of the night.<p>The video doesn't get into the exact science, but it also looks like the fishing isn't sustainable either, as divers reported needing to progressively dive deeper/take bigger risks over time to find high yields.
It’s absolutely amazing and terrifying at the same time to be underwater for that much time on only one breath. My personal record is a bit above 70 seconds.
When I lived in Singapore, I used to go to Bintan a lot during NE Monsoon to kitesurf. There were lots of Orang Laut, an unrelated group of nomadic people, in their houseboats just offshore.