Here’s a neat video we found of a young girl exhibiting a unique way to deal with a swamped boat.
The person who posted the video included a short description that Google translates to “the experience of seeing how a daughter Bajau sea rescue boat from sinking in Mabul, Sabah. Skill is very great!”
The young girl confidently takes charge after her dugout “vinta” apparently swamped while carrying several people. Standing on the gunwales and using great balance, she rocks the vessel to empty the water.
Mabul is a small island off the southeastern coast of Sabah in Malaysia. The island has been a fishing village since the 1970s and is now popular with divers and tourists.
The islanders are known as the Bajau Laut, a nomadic people who have lived at sea for centuries, primarily in a swath of ocean along the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.
British photographer James Morgan was studying in London when he read about a group of seafaring Southeast Asian nomads who had survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with almost no casualties.
“They understood the ocean so well that they headed for protection before the tsunami hit,” Morgan told Business Insider.
“They learn to swim before they walk, legend says,” reads a January 2011 New York Times blog describing the Bajau Laut. “They intentionally rupture their eardrums at an early age so they can dive deeper and longer. They spend their lives at sea, living on boats and plunging to improbable depths in search of pearls, sea cucumbers and fish.”
Morgan posted some of the stunning photographs he captured during his 2010 visit with the Bajau Laut on his website.
