On the island of Rote in West Timor, Meji Nafi prays in front of an empty tomb in his garden.

Her husband, Captain Johanis Balu, was one of nine Indonesian fishermen who drowned at sea in March, in remote waters off Australia’s northwest coast.

Their bodies were never found, despite an intensive rescue operation involving a helicopter crew from Western Australia, the Australian Navy and a passing freighter.

“The custom here is that when someone dies at sea, we have a grave to remember them, so children and grandchildren will know that their father or grandfather drowned.”

The men’s boat, Kuda Laut or ‘seahorse’, capsized in rough seas west of Ashmore Reef as Tropical Cyclone Charlotte slammed into them about 630 kilometers north of Broome.

Only a day earlier they had sailed from the port of Papela and when the weather suddenly closed they tried to turn back.

But it was too late. A giant wave suddenly overturned the boat, sending the men into the ocean.

Survivors rushed to make a raft from the wreckage of the boat

The nine crew members who drowned could all swim.

Those who could not swim are those who survived after managing to build a makeshift raft from the wreckage of the boat, keeping them afloat for two or three days until they were finally rescued.

They were then taken to hospitals in Darwin and WA, suffering from severe dehydration, hypothermia and exhaustion.

The youngest man, Reki Balu, 29, was seriously ill for weeks in a Perth hospital before being flown back to Rote.

His ordeal was so traumatic he still can’t talk about it, and none of the three survivors will ever set foot in a fishing boat again.

“I’m too scared to go back to sea,” said Habel Kanuk, who was on the boat in March.

“The risks are too high. Now I just work around the village, doing construction work.”

It was poverty that forced the men to go to sea in the first place, even though most of them – with the exception of the captain – had no experience as sailors.

“On a good day, we could bring in over a million rupees (100 AUD).

“If we relied solely on farming, we would only earn income once a year.”

The desperate search for food after two years of confinement

As Indonesia emerges from the pandemic and two difficult years of near-lockdown, thousands of men and teenagers – often with no experience on a boat – are setting sail to try fishing.

In Hundihuk alone, one of many small villages in Rote, more than 100 fishermen have left in recent months, helping to fuel a rise in illegal fishing boats in Australian waters.

In the 12 months to the end of June, Australian authorities said there had been 337 legislative confiscations at sea and 44 foreign fishing vessels were seized, most if not all of them Indonesian.

This represents an almost fourfold increase from the previous year, when 12 fishing boats were seized and 85 confiscated between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021.

Peter Venslovas of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority says the number of illegal fishing boats in Australian waters is at its highest level in more than a decade.

“We haven’t had those numbers for 10 to 15 years,” he said.

“The numbers are approaching the numbers we saw in the mid-2000s, which peaked in 2005-2006.”

But lucrative and rising prices for fish and other marine species are also a key driver of illegal fishing.

The search for abundant marine treasures

Most of the fishermen, including Kuda Laut’s 12-member crew, fish for trepang or sea cucumber, which can fetch upwards of AU$20 each, or AU$40 per kilogram.

A big catch can fetch thousands of dollars.

Sea cucumber is a delicacy in Chinese restaurants, where a typical dish can cost over AU$100 in restaurants in Jakarta or Surabaya.

Last year, nearly 29,000 kilograms of trepang and 583 kg of sharks were seized from vessels fishing illegally in Australian waters, along with fish fins, mackerel and tuna.

According to Venslovas, as other industries have declined during the pandemic, fishing has become more lucrative.

“Fishermen who have had jobs in the tourism industry and so on in Indonesia before, like Bali and other places, with the closures and lockouts and so on, they had to look for other means of earning a living,” he said. said.

Authorities in Rote fear that declining incomes as well as rising prices for marine species could draw even more Indonesians who lack sea skills to the high seas and lead to more drownings.

“Our village has been hit hard by the pandemic,” says Hundihuk village chief Yunus Modok.

“The number of poor people has increased. The big problem is the economic conditions here, which means a lot of people are still going out despite the bad weather,” he said.

Grant Barker, a commercial fisherman who also works in Australia’s northern waters, has often been called upon to pull shipwrecked sailors from boats in distress.

He says he was deeply saddened to learn of the March tragedy.

“They were very lucky to find all three alive. You know, I think it’s pretty miraculous,” he said.

But it was not the first time he had seen mishaps off the west coast of Australia.

“One of my skippers found three Indonesians floating in the sea. They had been adrift for five days…but luckily none drowned,” he said.

“They tied a few eskies together and they managed to pick up water bottles, enough to keep them alive.

“It happens, these boats have issues from time to time…it just doesn’t seem to be fixed properly. And it really got worse with the advent of COVID.”

Calls on Australia to step up patrols to rescue fisherman

Earlier this year, Australia and Indonesia set up joint working groups to enable better cross-border fisheries cooperation. The first meetings took place in Jakarta.

But in June, officials from both countries traveled to Rote and Kupang in West Timor to develop a public information campaign, to ensure Indonesians can navigate properly and avoid fishing illegally in Australian waters.

“What is of concern here is that much of the fishing undertaken during this recent surge in activity is taking place in Marine Protected Areas, which have been established under Australia’s Environment Act to protect biosecurity, biodiversity and ecosystems in these particular areas,” Venslovas said.

Traditional fishermen in non-motorized boats are allowed to fish without penalty in a box-shaped area that straddles Australian waters, under a memorandum of understanding negotiated with Indonesia decades ago.

Village chief Mr Modok said Rote fishermen wanted the Australian or Indonesian authorities to increase patrols in northern Australia so they could react more quickly if fishermen got into trouble.

He also called on Australia to provide small boats or nets to help Indonesians fish more successfully in local – but impoverished – waters to prevent them from venturing out to sea where fish are more plentiful but the dangers are higher.

Mr Barker believes a quiet change in government policy over the past two years has led to the increase in the number of incursions and greatly increased the risks of another tragedy.

The ABC contacted the Australian Border Force but it declined to comment and the DFAT did not provide a specific response to the ABC’s questions.

“It was caused by COVID; there was no appetite for the border force and the navy to interact with these illegal fishermen because of the fear of [coronavirus],” he said.

“I understand that, they have to take care of their staff.

“But that’s why more and more Indonesians started coming; because they knew they weren’t going to have their boats taken away or burned or maybe even put in jail for being illegally in Australian waters.

“For us and for the sake of the Indonesians, we must restore the hard border, which is the [Exclusive Economic Zones] and keep the Indonesian guys on their side, and the Australian guys on our side – or there will be more of them here, and there will probably be more tragedies.”