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> Historically sailors were actually quite bad swimmers It's not just historically. A lot of people who work on the water these days in developing countries ar
by toomanybeersies 8y ago
> Historically sailors were actually quite bad swimmers
It's not just historically. A lot of people who work on the water these days in developing countries are still terrible swimmers. One of my friends was a dive instructor in Indonesia for a few months, and apparently the guys skippering their dive launches couldn't swim. Since it was Indonesia, they also didn't bother with wearing life jackets.
I don't know how they managed to spend their life living on an island and not learn how to swim. Apparently Fijians are also terrible swimmers. It just doesn't make sense to me. Obviously they aren't going to swim between the islands, but it seems like a fairly essential life skill when boats are your main method of transport.
- adrianratnapala 8y agoSwimming is overwhelmingly (though not entirely) a recreational thing and mostly found in rich countries. A few professionals in poor countries know how to swim, dive and do all sorts of things. But everyone else has more important things to do than to learn how to swim. And swimming is something you should either learn to do fairly well, or not do at all. Most poor mothers will let their kids play soccer on a quiet street -- but they will balk at letting 'em swim unless they get real training.