Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone, and the Banana Islands, respectively, scream as Emmanuel Pratt tugs a worn cord and the outboard engine bursts into life as the sun sets below. Through the murky waters, his white and fading blue wooden canoe cuts through. Fruit bats scream overhead.
Pratt, 35, is a veteran sea cucumber diver from Sierra Leone’s Banana Islands, a population of about 500. He has spent the past 15 years looking for warty, oversized sea slugs by scouring the ocean floor. They scurry up the ocean floor and emerge at night to gobble up decomposing matter while hiding in silt during the day.
Omolade Jones, age 25, perches on the edge of the boat and looks out at the dark water while also sweating in a half-zipped-up wetsuit.
The younger diver gestures at Pratt to stop the engine and prepares to dive after ten minutes. Jones catches an underwater torch, snags it, and fastens his waist with a breathing hose.
The small, jungle-clad archipelago’s seabed is full of sea cucumbers. They are now a teeming with and dispersed. Freediving is no longer an option, according to Wikipedia. Pratt and Jones must look for their catch for a while before doing so.
The boat’s “hookah diving” system, which involves lowering air from a diesel-powered generator through a plastic hose, has been abandoned. It offers a lifeline that is fragile and risky. Diesel fumes can easily contaminate the air and the engines are frequently outdated. Additionally, it is much riskier than free diving or scuba diving, according to experts.
Jones squirms into the dark water as the diesel engine in the boat rattles. As he evades the canoe, the yellow hose leaves him in the distance. His torch is lit up a column of water above the seabed a few minutes later.
With his eyes fixed on Jones’s light, Pratt sits on the canoe, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He glumly says, “The cucumbers are running out.
They used to haul in dozens of buckets of sea cucumbers each night, but now they can’t seem to locate any. Pratt claims that the divers’ income is hardly ever higher than $40 per dive, which is barely enough to cover the cost of fuel or the rental of some of the diving equipment.
Jones exits the boat shortly after lighting up his torch to indicate that he is prepared to return. He raises his forearms to the side to support himself when he reaches the canoe. He holds the torch in one hand and the other, a tiny, brown sea cucumber.
Pratt turns his attention to the dark water and disappears. A sea cucumber is displayed a while later. However, the divers are unsatisfied. With only three specimens in their bag, they return to the mooring after a short while at sea.
Source: Aljazeera
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