Smoking while diving on the decline in Sentani

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post/Jayapura

Smoking while diving? People may raise their eyebrows when they hear this for the first time. But not the people who live near Sentani Lake in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province.

Smoking while diving is common for the Sentani people, who smoke when diving for fish.

How they do it? Before jumping into the water, Sentani fishermen prepare all their equipment, such as kalawai and onggei (two types of spears), wauw (net to collect fish), felfale (a special net for shellfish), goggles, a cigarette and betel nuts to chew on. All the equipment is then loaded into a boat and the fishermen row out into the middle of the lake. Before diving into the water, each fisherman lights a cigarette and puts on his goggles. Some chew an betel nut.

Once a fisherman is ready, he jumps into the water with a spear. Fisherwomen take a felfale to collect shellfish.

Why light a cigarette? A fisherman puts the cigarette in his lips with the lit end in his mouth and dives into the water with his mouth shut tight.

When he returns to the surface few minutes later, he turns the cigarette around to the proper position and smokes in the normal fashion.

"The cigarette, which stays alight when I dive, helps warm my body while I'm in the water. I smoke while I wait for a fish to pass that I can catch with my spear," said James Opuhiri, 34, a fisherman who learned to swim when he was four years old.

However, the habit is dying out since a growing number of fishermen are using nets to catch fish. Using a net is more practical as more fish can be caught in a short time.

Nomensen Ongge, 50, a local figure in Asei Besar hamlet in Sentani, hopes the government will preserved the habit through regular competitions to attract tourists. "These days, the activity is usually done at the request of tourists," said Nomensen.