METHODS OF FISHING
There
are several methods of naked diving: head-first from a spring-board
attached to the side of the boat, as the Malabar coast Hindus and some
of the Egyptians do; swimming to the bottom, as practised in the deep
waters of the South Sea; and dropping to the oyster bed with a stone.
The latter is the most common way in Indian, Egyptian, and Arabian
waters, especially where the banks lie in forty to fifty feet of water.
Standing
on the spring-board a few seconds to fill his lungs, the head-first
diver suddenly plunges overboard and passes smoothly and rapidly
through the water straight to the shoal below. Gathering quickly as
many oysters as possible while his breath lasts, he places them in the
net at his waist, attaches them to a convenient rope hanging from the
boat's side and shoots to the surface. There he recuperates by lazily
floating- about if the water is shallow, if deeper, by climbing back
into the boat for his next plunge. If diving in pairs, one rests while
his partner dives.
Expert divers who dive singly have an attendant, a manduck, who attends to the lines
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