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The Star
06-05-2025
- The Star
Where the sea breathes life
THE first thing you notice on the journey to Semporna is the slow transformation of the landscape. As the road winds eastward through Sabah's lush interiors, the land flattens and the air grows saltier. The thick jungles give way to oil palms, stilt villages and the Celebes Sea glitter stretching far beyond the horizon. It feels like you're approaching the very edge of the world – and in many ways, you are. Fishing boats return at sunrise to Semporna's bustling waterfront, where life unfolds to the rhythm of the tides. Semporna, which means 'perfect' in Malay, is a coastal town that seems to float between land and sea, a gateway to some of the most spectacular waters on Earth. It hums with a rough-edged charm: fishing boats bob along the waterfront, seafood stalls sizzle with the day's catch and divers from every corner of the globe gear up for the adventures that await offshore. But the magic of Semporna truly begins when you leave the mainland. A short boat ride whisks you away into an aquatic paradise – a scattering of islands ringed with bone-white beaches and reefs bursting with life. A scenic boardwalk leads to serene water chalets, offering a peaceful retreat with panoramic views of Semporna's pristine coastline. Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai and others are names that echo promises to divers and dreamers. Here, the ocean is a cathedral of colour – tornadoes of swirling barracuda, delicate nudibranchs draped across coral shelves and green turtles gliding lazily beneath sun-streaked waves. Yet, among all this natural splendour, it is the Bajau Laut people who give Semporna its soul. Known as the 'sea gypsies,' the Bajau Laut are among the last true marine nomads. For centuries, they have lived almost entirely at sea, migrating between the islands and shoals aboard lepa-lepa – slender wooden boats that serve as both home and vessel. Their connection to the ocean is not poetic; it is absolute. In a modest sundry shop, a local woman prepares traditional snacks – reminders of Semporna's warm hospitality and cultural richness. Many Bajau children learn to swim before they can walk. They free-dive to incredible depths, harvesting sea cucumbers, fish and shellfish with little more than a spear and a breath of air. Indeed, the Bajau Laut are often called the world's finest natural fishermen. In a display of breathtaking skill and stamina, Bajau divers slip beneath the surface without modern equipment – no scuba tanks, no masks – relying only on centuries of instinct and training. With lungs as disciplined as those of pearl divers, they can stay submerged for minutes at a time, some for as long as five minutes, while navigating the labyrinth of coral gardens below. Underwater, they move like marine creatures themselves, completely at ease. A Bajau fisherman, armed with a handcrafted wooden spear, will glide through the submerged world with slow, deliberate movements, conserving every ounce of oxygen. They hunt lobsters, octopuses and reef fish with uncanny precision, often securing their catch with a single, fluid strike. Watching them from the surface – their bodies reduced to shimmering shadows in the sun-dappled blue – is to witness a dance as old as time. Their livelihood is as precarious as it is remarkable. Two Bajau Laut boys armed with home-made spearguns, ready to dive in search of fish in the shallows – skills passed down through generations. Free-diving day after day takes a toll on their bodies, yet it remains their primary means of survival in a world where access to land and resources is limited by statelessness and circumstance. Their history is a weave of migration, trade and endurance. Believed to have originated from the southern Philippines, waves of Bajau people spread through the Sulu Archipelago into Sabah. Stateless and often without formal citizenship, they exist in the margins – moving across invisible borders drawn by governments but irrelevant to a people whose real homeland is the sea itself. Visiting the floating villages around Semporna is an encounter with a different world. Rows of stilt houses teeter above turquoise shallows. Children paddle between them on makeshift rafts or half-sunken canoes, flashing bright smiles. Women in vibrant sarong hang fish to dry, while men mend nets under the sweltering sun. A lone Bajau Laut woman paddles over seagrass meadows, selling fresh coconuts and shellfish from her boat – a floating marketplace on the sea. At low tide, the sea recedes to reveal gardens of seaweed and starfish beneath the homes, only to return with the rhythm of the tides. There is hardship here, undeniably. Life without a nationality means limited access to education, healthcare and stable work. Yet there is also an enduring resilience – a stubborn beauty to the way the Bajau live, crafting existence from the currents and tides with grace and dignity. Back in Semporna town, the day's adventures are best concluded with a feast of seafood, plucked fresh from the ocean. The waterfront night market is a sensory explosion: the smoke of grilling squid, the crackle of frying prawns, the gleam of slipper lobsters and tiger grouper laid out on ice. Plates arrive piled high with buttered lobster, spicy sambal clams and sweet, tender crabs – a banquet that tastes of the ocean itself. As the sun sinks behind the town, painting the sky in molten hues of gold and crimson, you begin to understand why Semporna is so much more than a diving hotspot. It is a living museum of an ancient maritime culture. It is the stage for the Bajau Laut's timeless ballet with the sea. It is a place where beauty and struggle coexist, where stories are written on the waves and sung by the wind. Visitors come here for the underwater wonders, but they leave with something deeper: a glimpse into a way of life that, though threatened by modernity and politics, still endures with fierce pride and quiet poetry. In Semporna, the sea is not just a view. It is life itself – endless, restless and achingly beautiful.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Legendary Female Free-Divers Reveal Evolution in Action on South Korean Island
To survive on this wild planet we call home, humans need to adapt. That's not just a feat of strength of will, but of the body. To deal with different environmental pressures, our bodies change over generations, tweaking the traits that will optimize our ability to not just live, but to thrive. We see it at high altitudes, where the human body has adapted to lower oxygen levels in the air. Now, scientists have found the genetic tracers for adaptation on South Korea's Jeju Island, written in the genetic code of the Haenyeo: women who free-dive into frigid waters, year-round, to harvest food from the seafloor. For centuries, Jeju Island relied on the work of the Haenyeo. Now, the need for their services is on the wane, and most of the women are older, with an average age around 70 – possibly the last generation to exercise the tradition. "They're absolutely extraordinary women," says geneticist Melissa Ilardo of the University of Utah. "Every day, they head out and get in the water, and that's where they work all day. I saw women over 80 diving off a boat before it even stopped moving." Ilardo has spent years studying human adaptations to extreme environments. In 2018, she and her colleagues published a paper describing the first population found to have evolved genetic adaptations to ocean free-diving – the Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia. She and her colleagues wanted to know if similar adaptations improve the abilities of the Haenyeo as they dive to depths of around 10 meters (33 feet) to collect ingredients like abalone and seaweed from beneath the cold, heavy waters. Their study involved 91 participants: 30 Haenyeo divers; 30 Jeju locals who are not divers; and 31 people from Seoul on mainland Korea, with an average age of 65 for all participants. DNA samples were taken, and participants also had their heart rate and blood pressure tested, both at rest, and during a simulated dive in which they submerged their faces in a bowl of cold water. "If you hold your breath and put your face in a bowl full of cold water, your body responds as if you're diving," Ilardo explains. "A lot of the same processes happen in your body that would happen if you were to jump in the ocean, but it's done in a way that's safe for people with no diving experience." Interestingly, there was no genetic difference between the Haenyeo divers of Jeju Island and the other locals on the island. But the Jeju populations were more than four times more likely than Seoul residents to have a genetic variation associated with lower blood pressure. This is likely because holding one's breath, as is necessary for a free-dive, raises one's blood pressure. The researchers speculate that naturally lower blood pressure is vital for Haenyeo divers, who work even while pregnant. Heightened blood pressure during pregnancy can result in conditions such as preeclampsia, which can be quite dangerous for both mother and fetus. "This association may reflect natural selection to mitigate the complications of diastolic hypertension experienced by female divers while diving through pregnancy," Ilardo says. "Since Bajau women also dive while they're pregnant, we wonder whether pregnancy is actually driving a lot of the genetic changes in these diving populations." Interestingly, the stroke mortality rate on Jeju is lower than most of Korea, suggesting that this adaptation may have some side benefits, since stroke is associated with high blood pressure. The other genetic difference between the Jeju and mainland populations that the researchers observed has to do with the body's pain tolerance for cold. This, they believe, may help make the divers less susceptible to hypothermia, since they dive year-round, even in winter when temperatures plunge to freezing levels. "While we did not measure thermoregulatory physiology in our study, this represents an avenue for future research," the authors write. There was one very intriguing difference between the Haenyeo and the non-divers of Jeju Island. When placed in the simulated dive scenario, the heart rates of the Haenyeo slowed much more than the heart rates of either control group. This suggests that the heart rate adjustment is a learned response, rather than a genetic one – the product of decades of experience. The study results, the researchers say, could help scientists better understand the workings of the human body, how we respond to environmental pressure, and the effects those changes have on other health outcomes. "We're really excited to learn more about how these genetic changes may be affecting the health of the broader population of Jeju," Ilardo says. "If we can more deeply characterize how those changes affect physiology, it could inspire the development of therapeutics to treat different conditions, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and stroke." The research has been published in Cell Reports. Here's How Long You Need to Form a Habit, And 8 Tips to Stick With It This Memory Technique Primes The Brain to Absorb More Information Ice Age Humans Were Experts at Wielding Fire, Study Finds
South China Morning Post
23-10-2024
- South China Morning Post
Nowhere else to go: Malaysia's ‘sea nomads' forced out of homes
04:24 Nowhere else to go: Malaysia's eviction of 'sea nomads' casts light on precarious lives Nowhere else to go: Malaysia's eviction of 'sea nomads' casts light on precarious lives Published: 6:15pm, 23 Oct 2024 The Bajau Laut is an indigenous seaborne community in Malaysia. They have lived off eastern Sabah for centuries in wooden homes built over water in the Tun Sakaran Marine Park. However, a security crackdown on cross-border crime since June 2024 has left hundreds of Bajau Laut homeless, after authorities burned down and demolished what they described as illegal structures in the park in Semporna district.
