As morning breaks on Atauro Island, the village is lit in a soft glow. From somewhere between the calls of the rooster and the rumble of boat engines a woman emerges and steps, barefoot, onto the tide-worn reef flat.

She is the first to arrive at the waters’ edge – a lipa, a traditional garment akin to a sarong, knotted at her waist, its floral patterns tumbling down toward her calves.

At first glance, the woman could be mistaken for being on her way to church, if it wasn’t for the speargun in her hand and the pair of hand-carved wooden goggles, fixed atop her head with a piece of frayed fishing line.

She looks out to the water, her eyes scanning the ocean’s surface with the kind of assurance earned from 53 years of diving with the dawn. Her name is Agustina Quteres and she is one of the mermaids of Timor-Leste.

Tucked into the Western coast of Atauro Island in Timor-Leste lies the small fishing village of Adara. To outsiders, it might seem unassuming at first: a modest, protestant community, home to 28 households. Walking around the small village, it is clear that life here is beautifully simple. There is no cell service, no Wi-Fi and power is limited to a few hours in the evening.

Each day, children walk an hour to school in Atecru. The church and modest houses are built from bricks that are handmade from sand and rocks collected from the riverbed, their sheet metal roofs brought over from the capital city of Dili, on fishing boats.

But Adara harbours a unique and captivating story, one of women quietly empowered. It is home to the Wawata Topu, meaning ‘the women divers’ in the local language. They are the spearfishing mothers, wives and sisters that have been providing for their families from the waters of Atauro Island for decades.

Filmed as part of Oceanographic Magazine’s Storyteller in Residence series to accompany a written feature published in Issue 42, this short film captures quiet moments of strength, tradition, and change – from mornings spent diving in sarongs and flip-flops to conversations about motherhood, climate, and the future of their reef.

In a place with no dive centres limited electricity and three layers of translation, this film was made slowly and intimately in close collaboration with the women whose story it tells. Watch below.