Fishermen Facing Down the Storms

Fishermen Facing Down the Storms Serina Rahman (bio) Kami sebenarnya gadai nyawa demi dapatkan hasil laut untuk orang makan. We are actually pawning our lives to catch seafood for people to eat. —Attan Tekok This was muttered to me as I sat at the Pasar Pendekar Laut (Sea Warriors Market) jetty, waiting for the fishermen to return with their catch. It was storming violently, and we were silently counting boats to make sure everyone had made it back. Some had managed to race to shore ahead of the menacing clouds. Those who were too far out when the winds suddenly changed direction were stuck. Some had tried to hide in the nearly nonexistent shelter of a parked container ship. Others waited for a break to face down the winds and waves that rose far higher than their twenty-foot-long boats to try to get home. Nowadays, they never know how bad the storms will get. These guys never forget their comrades, though. Several will tie themselves to border marker buoys to count heads—they always know who ventured out further than usual; they will wait for each other before making a break home. Then, at least, if anyone flips, there will be others there to help. At the jetty, there is a quiet tension. The elders sit, eyes trained, at the entrance to our river. The younger ones in motorbike helmets and windbreakers go from boat to boat bailing out rainwater so that the boats and engines don't sink. These are basic fiberglass boats that don't drain themselves. There is no hiding from the elements in this trade. I pace back and forth on the jetty, doing what I can, ticking off names and noting the fish they send and their weights. I ask if they've seen the others and where they were when the storm hit. One by one, they return, bedraggled and exhausted. Often with very little catch to show for the storm that they've just survived. It's often too dangerous for them to haul in their nets and lines. This is work they do standing up in the boat, which is just impossible in this crazy weather as they rock wildly in the surge with the waves washing onto their decks. Money spent on petrol is burned with no returns. But they are just grateful to be back in one piece and hope that their nets and lines don't disappear. They head out again when the storm dies down to try to retrieve them. If [End Page 85] they are lucky, there will be some sort of catch for them too. If they are more than unlucky, they won't be able to find their gear. It can cost them up to RM2500 to get a new set of lines or nets. But you cannot put a price on your life. ________ This scenario was a frequent one over my 2.5 years helping out at the jetty during the Covid years. We are located at the western end of the Tebrau Strait between Singapore and Malaysia, in the southwestern corner of Johor. A string of fishing villages in the Tanjung Kupang subdistrict has been my home for the last fifteen years. I work in Singapore and commute daily across the Second Link Bridge, which is just five minutes to the right of our river estuary. As I sit in the inevitable immigration jam on the bridge going in to work every morning, I gaze down at our fishermen in the strait below and hope for their safe journey and a good catch in return for their toil. I am a conservation scientist by training, and I study human-habitat interactions and uses of marine ecosystems, primarily in the Tebrau Strait, where we have vast seagrass meadows, coastal mangroves, and a tiny island rich with teeming intertidal rocky shores and soft coral reefs. The fishermen are my primary providers of information, as they are the true habitat experts of this area, spending every day reading the water, waves, currents, and weather to bring home the seafood and support their families. Over the Covid period, when our borders were closed and...