February 2010

After arriving inKota Bharu we went shopping like manics. What did we need again on the island?

Nutella, jam, chees, food, food, food,, shampoo, toothopaste, medical stuff....

On the island you are kind of away from civilization. No supermarket, only Mr. Hwa. He is our main land supplier. Once a week we send him a shopping list. It is more expensive then on main land of course.

We went through the supermarket as never before and bought everything what we could get. We could take everything unfortunately but glad to take everything on our cargo boat to the island. Anke help us many days to get used to our booking system and email correspondence. Our cargo boat also took all diving equipment what we stored in a house on the main land. Nici arrived just on time at the jetty to join our cargo trip. Fresh air, sisters reunited happily the island in sight we ate local food with fingers. That was again delicious. We started unpacking all the stuff. After hours off unpacking dive equipment we looked forward to a shower.

Of course we had no water!

Like in old times we had to get our water out of a well and took showers from a bucket for the next two days. That’s at least what we thought, have a look at our report Asia toilette.

With all our boat and compressor guys it took some days to paint the shop and make it nice again. We had to finish some renovation and fixed some wires across the shelves – welcome to Asia.

Anke and Nadine took care about administration and booking s, Micha was in charge of getting the dive shop running and in straight order. We managed open up 11.02. First 10 days we had dives like in Germany – dark and no visibility. It became better from day to day. Nici made it to Advanced Open Water Diver already and is in progress of doing her Rescue Diver.

Anke left us in charge alone from mid February. But we will survive; thank God or Allah that there is Skype!