by Marit Miners

Busy days, here at the Misool Eco Resort Headquarters! I've been slowly shifting our website from one meant to attract investors to one meant to attract divers, adventurers, and conservationists. You'll find a new album of some of our best underwater photos here including Eric Battistoni's incredible new photo of two mating epaulette sharks. I've also added a calendar of booking dates to make holiday planning a bit easier.

This month, I'm pleased to introduce Precious Planet. This French charity was founded by an enthusiastic group of Misool Eco Resort's investors to support the Misool Conservation Centre.

Precious Planet will be working closely with us on Batbitim. Among their first projects will be to set up a local patrol to enforce the perimeters and regulations of our Marine Protected Area. They've also set up a weather station on Batbitim, which will help establish a baseline for future climactic studies. The barometer has already proved to be very handy - when the pressure drops, we know it's time to start taking all the powertools inside.

You can learn more about Precious Planet and sign up for their newsletter (in both French + English) here.

view from Batbitim's summit, looking northeast

view of the north bay - first three cottages now have roofs

Laode plastering the walls

Work on the restaurant continues on, and the kitchen floors are tiled and cavity walls sealed. The ceiling is now being plastered, and it won't be long until Bebbe and her crew of cooks moves off the camp stove and into a proper kitchen. Andrew has sourced several good kitchen supply places in Bali, so our plastic mugs and melamine plates have just about seen the end of their service.

After months of fits and starts, Laode and Lasaudin seem to finally have cracked the code and figured out the ideal formula for the plaster mix for the interior walls of the cottages.

The floors of the first Water Cottage have been laid with rectangular natural stone tiles with are cool and just smooth enough under foot.

Just for a bit of contrast, here's how our accommodation looked one and a half years ago...

Sascha enjoying the first Water Cottage at high tide, February 2008

Home Sweet Home for Andrew and Thorben, 18 months ago

The bathrooms of the Water Cottages are also finished. The toilet and sink are covered by the grass roof. In the foto on the left, you can just make out the sink hewn from natural volcanic rock. The shower is open to the sky.

bathroom in the first Water Cottage

our humble toilet, one year ago

bathroom in the first water cottage

view from the inside of the Water Cottage

enjoying a coffee on the terrace of the Dive Centre

our expert Javanese furniture makers...

...and their finished product

another table made by our furniture experts