I know it's not been that long since I last wrote, but I had to drag myself down to the internet shop as I thought a friend might be coming to visit me. Not sure what's happening there, but have discovered that the internet is not quite as bad as I made out before. It is still expensive, but not that slow - or maybe I've caught it on a lucky night.

The last week has been quiet as. Hardly any tourists on the island and they're not diving. I get paid by commission : (

STill it's not all doom and gloom. I've spent 5 days sitting around in the shop, waiting for no customers to show up so I can not tell them about diving, but I've finally had a chance to get to know the 4 indonesian guys and 2 girls that work at the dive shop. They're teaching me indonesian and are a good laugh. I guess you could say, "we've bonded". It's quite sweet. I'm very attached to them already. The guys are early 20's but spend half the time acting like kids.

We were playing cards and if you lost, you had to put a card between your face against your neck and hold it there until someone else lost a game! It's like being in first year uni again : )

The other day, they were out snorkelling (pretending to clean the boat). I went out snorkelling too and noticed they had a bucket. They were kinda try to avoid me in the water but I snuk up on them and looked in the bucket. Full of shells with snails in em. Now I appreciate that they eat them. But our dive shop has a reputation for being a marine life protector - not predator, and if they want to work here, they need to respect it. I told them that this wasn't allowed, but wasn't sure of the reception.

We all got out of the water at the same time, but the bucket had mysteriously disappeared. Gordon said that he'd put the shells back in the sea when I told him to(yeah right!), "so they're not on the boat" I reply.

"Um, no".

Go into the dive shop to clean my gear wondering what I should do next. I'm not really the boss, but I can't let this happen. 2 of the guys are showering when Gordon shouts something to one of the others. He sprints back down to the boat.

I follow shortly after. Dachlan, the youngest, who tends to get more than his fair share of piss taken out of him, is wandering around on the beach with the bucket, blatantly trying to work out where he can hide it.

Duh - it's a beach?! He sees me coming, looks really worried and starts walking off in the other direction pretending that nothing's wrong.

I call him over, take the bucket and say "not possible" in INdonesian. I've only been learning for a few days, so it's not that extensive. THe look on Dachlan's face is just priceless and it still makes me laugh. He had aboslutly no idea what to do. Talk about being caught red-handed!

I walked back up into the shop to get my mask and snorkel. The bucket is pretty full. It's going to take forever to swim around and find them all little nooks and crannies to live in!

The others are like "they have to go back?" To which my answer is "yes, I'll put them back", before someone has the opportunity to suggest that they do it.

They're good guys, but it's a cultural trait to take advantage if you can. The thing I like most is that there's no sulking or any backlash. This is the 2nd time that I've had to say something and both times, its like it never happened and soon after we're laughing and joking again. It's refreshing. However, I'm sure they'll be after the shells again, given half a chance, so I have to keep my eye out for that one!

In case you're thinking - it's just a few shells. The marine life has been seriously upset by a multidue of man-made and environmental disaster. This area, whose marine life is so extensive that it's a complete buzz apparently has about 1/2 of what it had 8 years ago. If we want to presere any of it, we gotta start now becuase it's a very sensitive eco-system and it can't take much more. Tons more I could say on that one, but shall stop now except for "shark-fin soup". If you've never had it. ACE! If you get the opportunity to eat it, DON'T. What they do to the sharks is devestatingly cruel and it's pratically put them on the extinction list.

That's all for now folks!
lots of love
kx