By Andrew Miners

A giant green turtle wasn’t the only thing to be scraping away at our beach during the last days of 2008. December saw the biggest tides of the year and the shifting sands in our small bay were moving faster than ever. We have seen the seasons change here a few times now, enough not to be worried about losing our beach, something that kept me awake in the early days. The waves driven by the west monsoon winds reach the beach at a slight angle, slowly shifting the sand to the east of the bay, this cycle is reversed in the south monsoon when the sand shifts once more and piles up on the west side. However before now we didn’t have a beautiful wooden terrace built in front of the restaurant and increasingly over the last month the sand which it’s built on is being steadily eroded.

With some foresight and a fair amount of luck, we had scheduled these two weeks for maintenance and so kept them clear of bookings. Good job too. The last few days on low tide everyone has pitched in reinforcing the stone wall at the top of the beach.

Tonight at high tide we watched the water lapping over the top of the wall running to form puddles beside the restaurant toilets. Bapak gazed sagely into the water and explained that according to their traditional “adat” belief, at this time of the year the high tides reach their peak. As the waters build up they reach a point where they drive down the tides and force the change in seasons, and the extreme low tides we have been seeing in the day time switch to night. The tide charts confirms this, as from January onwards the tidal movement in the day are minimal and the ones at night much bigger. This is great news for anyone that’s ever tried exploring the bay under moonlight armed with a torch and a sense of wonder. All manner of crustaceans can be seen, wading through the shallows beside the reef edge.

Having no guests has afforded a much needed break for many of our team. Thorben’s off to colder climes, Germany to be precise, manning our stand on the Boot exhibition (booth A20, Hall 3. Come and say hello!). Sascha’s back in Thailand renewing his visa and making sure the standard of Thai whiskey hasn’t slipped since he was last there. Simon and Kasia are also off in Bali for a much needed break. Simon, I am sure, is happy for once that someone else is cooking.

Marit and I are left holding the fort till they return. “it must be soooo romantic” one of my friends said to me in a Skype chat the other day, “just the two of you on the island!” Yes, very romantic, just Marit, me and 50 of our local staff. Nevermind, our romantic escape will come soon. But for now there’s plenty to be done. Aside from the sea wall to be built, there are wrinkles to be ironed out, dust to be swept from corners and general tweaking and ttinkering that’s part and parcel of a three month old resort.

Something that we have been meaning to do for ages is to run our new speedboat captains course. We got off to a good start today with some theory and a boat handling practical. Tomorrow we’ll continue by throwing each other in the water and driving off (Man over board procedure), jumping into the water and disappearing (lost diver procedure), and a couple of hours with spanners, wrenches and spark plugs in our hands as we go through basic engine maintenance with our chief mechanic.

Perhaps best of all is that we've finally started our Open Water classes for our local staff! Sangut, our new Indonesian instructor and dive guide, has been doing a great job teaching Bapak Mohammed, Tadin, and Radjak the basics of diving. This morning, Bapak did his first dive on our house reef. After all this time, he finally understands what all the fuss is about, and why people travel from all corners of the world just to have a look underwater. Marit and I are both looking forward to diving with him. Once our speedboat captains successfully complete their training, they'll be Sangut's next students. They're all terribly eager.

photo by Peter H. Van Bragt

Just eight more days before we’ll all be standing on the jetty, once more ready to meet the guests; uniforms freshly washed (I almost said ironed), concrete mixer packed away and chainsaw back in it’s box. The beds will be made up with clean sheets, there will be fresh flowers in the bathrooms and Simon will be back in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Ahh… everything as it should be…