Time immemorial: Traditions in Timor Leste
On her Timor Leste expedition on assignment for Oceanographic, our 2024 Storyteller in Residence, coral reef biologist, conservation photographer-filmmaker and expedition leader Mads St Clair, gets to know the Wawata Topu.
It’s just gone 6am when we clamber out of the mini bus and onto the beach at Dili’s harbour. I’m a little concerned about the crossing as the wind has been picking up in the afternoons this week, but this early in the morning the ocean is still, stretching like brushed silk out to the horizon.
I’m heading to Timor Leste’s Atauro Island for my next assignment as Oceanographic Magazine’s Storyteller in Residence, for a story that I am incredibly excited by. Timor Leste, or East Timor, is a curious place – and certainly one I have longed to visit. After 30 years of civil war it’s one of the youngest countries in the world, and is also home to some of the world’s most biodiverse reefs and its waters are frequented annually by pygmy blue whales, who pass by on the journey back down to Antarctica.
Flakes of paint fall into the water as we load the kit into a local fishing boat, our dive kit and camera bags taking shelter under a modest roof that looks like it will offer little in the way of protection should it rain. But this morning all is well under the blazing sun, and after just three hours, we reach Atauro within a couple of hours. The island rises from the water, steep and green, its coastline scattered with tiny villages tucked between dense jungle and the fringing reef’s edge.
As we make our way around the island’s western coast, Adara comes into view. Our boat tucks into the small, circular gap in the reef that acts as the harbour of the small village. Landing at high tide, we had no choice but to unload directly into the water. The Wawata Topu (the local freediving women who I’ve come to photograph) come straight down to help, lifting tanks and camera gear from the boat with practiced ease.
As we step off the boat and onto the reef flat, I feel something surprising underfoot. The limestone, once a thick cushion of living reef, has been worn down to bare, eroded rock. What’s left is a smooth skeletal surface, a reminder of just how much has shifted here and how much use the reef must have.
Once on the shore, the walk to our huts begins. A little under a kilometre up the beach, the stretch looks deceptively manageable from a distance. In reality, the terrain is unforgiving, and after making our way across the unstable coral rubble and fist-sized pebbles with heavy loads of kit, we’re sweating profusely. For us, each step requires full concentration, yet the Wawata Topu women move effortlessly beside us, navigating the broken terrain barefoot while carrying our luggage without hesitation.
By the time we reached the huts, the sun was already high and the ocean surface behind us shimmered under the midday light. We were hot and sore. But we were here. And the sea was waiting.
We run into our first issue almost immediately.
On this side of Atauro there’s no dive center. No tanks, no compressor, no spare bits and bobs. This side of the island is beautiful but off-grid, so before arriving in Adara, I’d arranged with a dive shop on the other side of the island to deliver six tanks to us – what I’d hoped would be enough for the whole shoot. I’ve brought a friend along to act as my safety diver – we’re meant to be self-sufficient and we’ve brought everything with us (gear, cameras, batteries) knowing full well that if anything goes wrong, there’s no backup.
I thought I’d done a pretty good job at planning, but I guess nothing is ever really that simple out here. What I couldn’t have anticipated (and I hadn’t picked up on during my location research) is that there is no phone signal out here. Nada. Not a smidge. So for us today, this means no way to call or message the dive centre to check when the tanks might arrive or where we should meet them.
So we just wait, scanning the horizon for boats.
Sometime after lunch, the dive boat finally arrives – and I find myself waving like a madman from shore, as I can’t risk the boat returning to their dive centre without dropping the tanks. They finally spot me and without thinking I wade out across the reef flat fully clothed, the tide pushing against my legs. It’s awkward and slightly ridiculous. But I’m also excited because this is the gear I need to start the shoot.
I carry the tanks back to the shore, my clothes are soaked through but I’m smiling. That is until, just as the boat is pulling away, my friend notices something.
They’ve brought yoke tanks. We need DIN.
I panic a little, because I pride myself on packing and I know for a FACT I did not pack a converter or an Allen key to unscrew the inserts. And though I know I asked for DIN, somehow, in all the preparation, I didn’t think about packing a converter just in case. It’s a huge oversight, and it could sink the whole shoot.
I wade-sprint as fast as I can back across the reef flat, waving frantically at the boat, just in time to catch their attention before they disappear. One of the guys jumps back in with an Allen key and we manage to convert three of the tanks. But the others are fixed and can’t be removed. So now, instead of having enough tanks for multiple dives, we’re working with three.
Three tanks to film everything is going to be a push. We’re going to have to be incredibly conservative with air, plan every dive to the minute and stay shallow. It’s frustrating. But also, a reality of fieldwork – it never really goes to plan. I know we’ll figure it out.
To say we’ve been sleeping poorly is the understatement of the year. We’re staying in tiny wooden huts on the beach, constructed from sun-faded wood, with woven palm walls that let the breeze pass through at night (should there be a breeze). There’s no fan, no plugs sockets. Just a mattress on the floor under a mosquito net, a bucket scoop shower, and the sound of the sea crashing against the shore.
The first night is hard. The heat is thick and unmoving, the wind that charged throughout the afternoon having dropped as soon as the sun sank beneath the horizon. I lie there listening to the mosquitos buzzing around the net, sweat pooling at the back of my knees and behind my neck, wishing I had brought a fan.
The other thing keeping me from sleep is a mild (and growing) concern about the power situation. Arriving to no plug sockets was a bit of a surprise – and with various bits of camera equipment to charge, I’m concerned about things being charged tomorrow. Neka, our homestay owner’s wife, leads us through the village to their house where a generator is on. She tells us we can charge our things here, for a price, of course. I am happy to pay, but knowing that most communities will turn the generators off sometime in the evening, I’m concerned about how much power our batteries will have by tomorrow.
The next morning, I sit on the steps with a cup of instant coffee and watch the surface of the ocean change from pink to lilac to blue as the sun climbs back into the sky. The waves are deafening as they crash against the pebbles. It is a slow morning and I am exhausted. More exhausted than I like to be on the first day of a shoot.
I pick myself up off the steps and promptly squeal with delight / almost faint with shock, because in front of me, a pig is eating a coconut on the beach. Perhaps it will be a good day after all.
For more Despatches, images and more, follow our 2024 Storyteller in Residence’s journey here or over on Instagram.
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