This group of female free divers in the Korea Strait have daily rituals of friendship

The following is an excerpt from "Girl Squads: 20 Female Friendships That Changed History” written by Sam Maggs and illustrated by Jenn Woodall.

“Girl Squads” celebrates female friendships throughout history. In this excerpt, we learn about the haenyo, or “sea women” of the Korea Strait.

A word of Japanese origin, haenyeo can be translated as “sea women,” and these divers carry on a tradition that dates back centuries. Each morning, they head out across the volcanic island to the rocky shoreline; swim out into choppy, chilly water; dive down over 20 feet; and stay there for around two minutes while they grab sea life by hand. When they resurface, the haenyeo gulp air with a sharp inhale that sounds something like a dolphin—and then they pop back under to do it all over again and again, sometimes up to six or seven hours a day.

“Every time I go in, I feel as if I am going to the other side of the world,” 75-year-old Yang Jung Sun told New York Times reporter Norimitsu Onishi in 2005. “It is all black in front of me. My lungs are throbbing. At that moment I am dead.”

It’s no wonder the diving feels like death — the women wear no respirators or other mechanical equipment. In fact, they don’t have much gear at all, which has been true as far back as records can tell us (i.e., at least a thousand years).

Traditionally they wore mulsojungi (water clothes) of mega-thin totally-not-protective-at-all cotton to dive unencumbered. Today’s haenyeo use glass goggles, rubber flippers, and neoprene wetsuits, which are more protective than cotton — but also more buoyant, making it harder to dive. To offset the extra floatation power, the haenyeo strap themselves into lead-weighted belts, which allow them to sink to the ocean floor. Holding their breath for up to two minutes at a time, they collect abalone, conch, octopus, sea urchins, top shell, and different kinds of seaweed (like the type that gets made into agar-agar for our peel-off face masks), using either their hands or a small metal tool.

Thanks to years of experience — the women typically begin diving in their early teens — the haenyeo know exactly which sea creatures will be available where and in what season. They’re also careful not to overharvest, so that there will be enough for future harvests (seashell season is from September to May only!). They gather their finds into taewaks, hollowed-out orange floaties attached to nets, which resemble the gourds that were used in the past. Then they haul their loads (sometimes over 60 lbs.) onto shore.

Though the tradition dates back generations, these days the haenyeo’s work is more grueling than ever. Their wetsuits allow them to stay longer in the water than they could even a half century ago — and most of the women remember those days very well, since the majority of the approximately 2,500 haenyeo are over 60 years old. Oh Byeong-soon, a 77 year old with six grandkids, has been diving for over 50 years, including all nine months of each of her pregnancies. The oldest active haenyeo is over 90, and she still drags in her catches when she can. It’s not easy. According to an interview with 62-year-old Yoo Okyeon in the Financial Times, the women “never know in advance if [they]’re going to die or not,” and the nine fatalities over the last five years are proof of that danger.

In 1965, it was predicted that the practice would die out by the end of the 20th century. But the haenyeo soldier on, their flippers flapping in the ocean waves, because on Jeju, it’s the women who bring home the bacon (or the abalone, as the case may be). Around 40 percent of the haenyeo’s husbands are unemployed, and their wives’ industriousness provides for the whole family. “I can still manage under the sea. My husband had it easy, hardly lifting a finger,” Kim Eunsil, with over 60 years under her lead belt, told the New York Times. “Men are lazy,” agreed 63-year-old Ku Young-bae. “They can’t dive. They are weak under the sea, where it’s really life or death.”

As you can imagine, this lifestyle, with its unavoidable demands of great strength in the face of adversity (both natural and human-related), has created an inimitable bond among the haenyeo. Before work each day, the women gather in a bulteok (fire space), a communal structure by the shoreline that was traditionally made out of low walls of piled-up stones, but now looks more like a regular ol’ locker room. There, the women get ready by warming up, helping each other put on their wetsuits, sharing anti-seasickness medication, and just chatting up a storm.

Before they head down to the water, you might catch the haenyeo honoring the wind goddess, Yeongdeung Halmang, praying to her for good weather and better fortune. The fully neoprene’d women often get themselves hyped for the day with songs — many of which (probably unsurprisingly) feature tales of female protagonists. One goes

Merciful Dragon Sea God,

Although we have good fortune

With abalone and conchs galore

Please let me dive in peace.

Reprinted with permission from Quirk Books. "Girl Squads: 20 Female Friendships That Changed History” will be released Oct. 2.