We certainly had our hands full when our first guests arrived on Aiduma island, with our building contractors still hard at work and the restaurant not yet finished, but we got lucky with two fabulous and chilled out guests from Spain – Maria & Guillem and some lovely weather!
All meals were served on the beach in front of the guest bungalows under the sun and stars, with only one night of rain which was the night we finally had half the roofing on the restaurant, so luckily manged to stay dry. During their visit we also managed to go and experience an event which only takes place once every 2 years – the collecting of Conch or at least the Indonesian equivalent. And Maria and Guillen jumped in to give a helping hand.
This was followed by guests: Martin from Switzerland, Theresa & Joe from USA, my parents from the UK, Gordon & Ian from USA, Katherine, Lilly, Steve, Anthony and Telly from Hong Kong, Charlie from UK, Connie from Germany, Aurelio from Spain and finally Paul and Jenny from the USA…. Not a bad start and I’m pleased to say everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves with some great photos and video to show for it!!
We even managed to find some time to check out some new dive sites and had some great finds, including Harlequin Shrimp, the endemic Flasher wrasse to this region, Mandarin fish, hairy shrimp and Pontohi and Bargibanty Pygmy seahorse. We even spotted the blue ringed octopus on a couple of occasions.
But we should not forget our larger encounters. Our guest Charlie was the luckiest of all and spent several hours hanging out with 5 whale sharks at the local bagans in our area. One extremely lucky lady! We have also had close encounters with mantas, devil rays, eagle rays, mobular rays as well as lazy wobbegong sharks! On top of this the soft coral and marine life here still blows my mind even after all this time!
We are now closed for the East Monsoon season, carrying out some general maintenance and doing some landscaping etc and will be opening again in September. We are looking forward to calmer weather and warmer waters, so we can get out diving again and find some more new sites and great critters. And of course to welcoming our new guests to this little piece of paradise.
Thank you to everyone involved for making the first half of this year fabulous! And thank you to our guests for some great photos!