by Andrew Miners

First off, Merry Christmas! For all of you celebrating the coming of Santa I hope you have a great one and a Happy New Year to boot. Christmas on Batbitim will be a quiet one this year, as nearly all our local staff are off for five days public holiday. This is a good excuse for the rest of us to catch up on our sleep and get a few welcome dives in. Marit is on her way from Bangkok to meet me, and we'll be spending Christmas in Kaimana on mainland Papua, searching for more petroglyphs.

Thorben is rapidly becoming our night diving guru. Almost every night he makes the quick change from his work clothes into his wetsuit and slips into the house reef, emerging an hour later with stories of sharks both sleeping and walking, crabs and shrimps coloured in every distraction and even the occasional blue ringed octopus.

On one of my recent boat trips back to Sorong just by chance we drove over a shallow reef, which, although not far from Batbitim is quite far from our regular dive sites and not being close to any of the islands we’d missed so far. Luckily we had tanks onboard and so Chris and I dropped in for a quick check dive. It showed great promise and our short dive revealed at least two sea mounds, one with a very interesting split in it, lots of great coral especially in the shallows and the usual mind boggling selection of fish. One particularly nice point was the school of banded travelley which raced out of the depths to greet us as we descended and then proceeded to follow us for much of the dive. Probably never seen such strange fish as us before…

looking north. photo by shawn heinrichs

unloading our new generators, nitrox compressor, and water-maker

We are now making good progress and I am pleased with the way all the guys are working - we seem to have found our groove. This last week saw the arrival of the two main generators, our second air compressor, Nitrox compressor, dive tanks and the reverse osmosis water-maker. Unloading all this machinery from the cargo boat onto our pier was nerve wracking to say the least and left Thorben and Cherry tearing their hair out - just one slip and the dive compressor would plunge into the sea.

All the new equipment are now safely stowed in their own rooms in the generator house. It's a satisfying step forward. Our staff have all moved into their permanent accommodation so the temporary tents on the north beach will be taken down and the bay will once again start to resemble the piece of paradise I once discovered. Sascha, our electrician, is back from Thailand and will be busy wiring the kitchen and restaurant over the next couple of weeks, all this in preparation for my brother’s arrival. Simon, a chef from the UK, will be arriving in mid January. He'll be setting up the kitchen, training the staff and turning out plenty of those scrumptious recipes for which he's known. Yum!

We're also looking forward to welcoming Jodi and Brandon, a Canadian/American couple and teaching team. They'll be working hard over the next six months to get our staff comfortable speaking English. They'll also be making visits to the local village to teach school children.

staff accommodation. photo by shawn heinrichs

view from staff accommodation. photo by shawn heinrichs

Few things I hate more than being the bearer of bad news, but we have decided to pushed back the opening date until October 2008. We have been very concerned that trying to receive guests while still building, as was the plan with the “soft opening,” had the potential of back firing and tarnishing our reputation. We will now be opening the full resort in the beginning of October. It’s very disappointing for all the team here, as we had set our hearts on the April opening date. But for a project of this scale and depth to come to fruition, certain compromises must be made along the way. The one thing we have not been willing to compromise is the integrity of our mission, to build and operate a beautiful eco-dive resort in a sustainable fashion. But this means we have to be a bit flexible in our timeline...

Some happy news to end on. Radjak, one of the local guys who has been with us from the very beginning is now the proud father of a healthy baby girl! But that ’s not the whole story… Radjak is in charge of our sawmill camp, which is currently situated on a remote beach on the north coast of Seram island, some 70 miles to the south of Batbitim. He’s now been there for more than six months along with his wife and the rest of our wood cutting team. Imagine our surprise, not knowing she was pregnant, when we got a phone call announcing the birth, born on site, beside the saw mill with only Radjak and the rest of the team in attendance! A happy baby girl, healthy although covered with plenty of saw dust!

Kati and our resident baby shark in the north bay

thumbs up!

Reef View Cottage