Having weighed the matter thoroughly, District Commissioner Barnett recommended that the strange couple from Shanghai be given a chance. The colony government leased the barren, 200-acre island to Gus for thirty-four dollars a year, and he and Mona spent most of their savings to buy two tents, bedding, a sack of rice, cooking utensils and farming tools. On June 5, 1953, Gus, Mona, their five-year-old daughter, Naomi, and two refugee farmers set sail for their new home, which Gus had rechristened Sunshine Island, in a hired junk. On their first night ashore it rained four inches in two hours, but they stuck it out with Mona doing the cooking and Naomi scampering around for field grass to ignite the fire. Twelve days after they landed, a refugee fisherman, his wife and daughter nosed their leaky boat against a sandy beach and became the next settlers. Within a month, Gus and his helpers had tilled a small patch of land and were raising some chickens, geese and nanny goats. Three-fourths of his capital had been consumed by these improvements and the farming books he pored over every night. An interest-free loan from a Quaker friend kept the venture afloat, and they sweated through the humid summer building grass huts, planting crops, and slashing paths through the shoulder-high sword grass. Any heavenly blessings they received did not cover weather conditions, for Typhoon Tess flattened their huts and tore up their garden. Yet the improbable colony earned its first income at the end of five months—$2.60 from the sale of rabbits they had raised. Loans and small gifts from friends overseas furnished additional support. Virtually nothing went swimmingly; the first few families who joined them on Sunshine couldn’t stomach the solitary island and had no interest in working to pay their way. One of the worst catastrophes in Hong Kong history—the Shek Kip Mei fire that destroyed the shacks of more than 60,000 squatters—created an unsought opportunity for Gus. Strapped for cash, he landed a temporary job helping to relocate the fire victims and sent his earnings back to Mona, who kept the Sunshine Island project breathing. He returned in a few months to find the island earning about one-third of what the Borgeests had spent on it. Both of them decided on some major changes. He talked to welfare agencies and secured their help in selecting people who had the desire and the qualifications to benefit from the scheme; farmers and those who wanted to learn simple trades, or people like Professor Ting, a former lecturer at Hangchow Christian College, who was willing to mind the geese while building up his shattered health. Every worker on the island earned $.35 a day, plus food and lodging for his family; a puny income, even by Hong Kong standards, but in their view, infinitely preferable to handouts.