@Yamamba as cresswga said, after repairing the bridge you should immediately receive a quest named "First machetes". Completing it should unlock machetes in the shop.
@mikefeith It is true that many people go only for spices, but there is another problem. When you visit an island, the game displays only 15 most recent helpers. If you have planted a lot of crops and people keep coming, the 17th only sees what #2-16 did, the 18th sees only what #3-17 did etc. And many people are not aware of that, so they just go for crops that look as unharvested to them thinking "oh, so many people and they didn't notice these pumpkins, I'm lucky!", which makes things worse. The game is old and developers are now busy with translating and implementing already existing content to the kong version, so I wouldn't expect them to fix it. All you can do to prevent the multiple harvesting of the same crops is either time your crops to ripe when you will be online or wall them off when you go offline for hours.
@doom2noobs @Palzmann Melting remaining icicles is not worth the rewards. There are 2 things worth doing after completing the event: collecting wine from sparkling fountain (it's precious!) and using the event sawmill for cheap planks (costs 3 wood instead of usual 4). Also make sure you collected all 10 gift baskets and the rainbow roses near lighthouse. And last but not least, there are 2 hidden quests. Visit the wiki site for more info.
@SuperDos gemstones you can safely sell, it's not hard to get more. Actually, selling the gemstones is for many the main shell income source. Pearls I don't remember, you may bette rsave them. Also some quests require you to submit unopened mussles, so better keep those too.
Tip for newcommers: when you visit a friend's island and their crops/animals are surrounded by a yellow aura it means that somebody already helped with those crops/animals. Find something else. Chopping trees is always okay, even if they are yellowish. Beehives, wells, claypits etc. have 5 or more "charges", but anthill only 1. Make your friends happy and they will help you too.
@deliverything I will make it as clear as possible - I am not supposed to guess what are the game controls. It's the role of instructions to tell me what they are. If they are looped on the first screen, it's really bad.
Post scriptum: kong haters keep hating, hilarious. xD
@deliverything Being able to figure it out is one thing, in-game instructions making completely no sense is completely different thing, these are unrelated. And kong haters keep hating as I can see, hahah.
Tip for newcommers: when you visit a friend's island and their crops/animals are surrounded by a yellow aura it means that somebody already helped with those crops/animals. Find something else. Chopping trees is always okay, even if they are yellowish. Beehives, wells, claypits etc. have 5 or more "charges", but anthill only 1. Make your friends happy, they will help you too.
ugugaga's post is downvoted by selfish people only because ugugaga kindly asked why they only help themselves instead of the 'help' function receivers as supposed to. Disgusting.