Your money should stay.

Smelter is the cylindrical shaped building.

you need to go your inventory and place items needed on the boat before you go to island

Your inventory can be moved by clicking on something in it and you should see a choice of moving it to the boat or selling it.

Was a glitch in the game - restart solved it,

They also show up as random drops when you're exploring the islands. You mainly get compasses that way though, so save your island coins to purchase propellers and lifesavers.

have to buy them, shop screen far right

Either through the free candy gift given every 8 hours, or from killing one of the ghosts, zombies, witches, etc on the island (it's kind of random what you get but sometimes you get lucky). Or you can buy them.

Its ok....found it!

You can also upgrade your buildings to increase island beauty.

Thank you/

Go in to the shop and buy items like lanterns, torches, etc. They are under the category of the palm tree with the heart. :)