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.

If life on land is simple, life below the surface is a tale of complexity: Atauro lies in the heart of the Coral Triangle and its waters boast the world’s most biodiverse reef fish community – home to 642 species. Like many ocean-dependent communities in South-East Asia, fishing is a pillar of survival for those who live on the island. An important source of food and income, Atauro is home to several small-scale fisheries, and the role of men and women within these fisheries is drastically different. Whilst the men spend most of their time fishing, using subsistence methods like spearfishing and the deployment of small nets from wooden boats, women are the ‘gatherers’ and often those who sell the catch. At low tide, women and children can be seen ‘gleaning’, collecting marine animals from the shoreline and reef flats. They harvest shells, crabs and eels, which are collected and eaten by their families. What sets Adara apart from other communities on Atauro Island, is that spearfishing is an activity not limited to men.

At the water’s edge, three more women – Difa Soares, Juleta Pesoa and Sara Tilman – join us. Each holds a matching spear gun, the design is simple, utilitarian – a shaft carved from wood, tapering toward the base to create a handhold. Agustina dives first into the ocean, a lipa billowing around her, followed by Difa, Juleta and Sara. On scuba, I try to keep up as the women dart around the reef, each diving gracefully on a single breath. Sara, to my surprise, is comfortably sporting flip flops. I follow her as she dives rapidly, firing and reloading in quick succession and prodding various holes in the reef with her spear.