Mabul Island

We went to Mabul Island last month, we booked this trip last year before knowing that I would get pregnant again, I actually wanted to try diving in Sipadan Island but now all I can do is just relaxing at the beach :-)

The jetty :

It was a long journey for us who live in West Malaysia that is far away from the airport, we had to take 3 hours ground transportation to the Kuala Lumpur airport, plus 2 hours 45 minutes' airplane ride to Tawau, Sabah, followed by an hour's ground transport to the port at Semporna, and finally 40 minutes boat ride to Mabul Island, all together we spent around 12 hours from our house to reach the resort !!

Upon arrival, most people went straight to perform their checking dive after lunch, I got to rest with Tristan in the air-conditioned room :-)

After fully rested, brought Tristan to play with his favorite sand:

The evening is serene, like most of the beaches, it's a place for relaxing and rejuvenating :

The next day, most divers went to Sipadan Island to dive, I wasn't allowed to go along for snorkeling as the boat ride was said to be too bumpy for a pregnant lady :-( The daily number of divers allowed to dive in Sipadan Island is limited to protect the island from over polluted, some people in our group has to go to a different spot to dive, and wait for their turn to go tomorrow.

From the dive center, which is also the jetty, we could oversee a previously used oil platform, now become a small resort :

And the water is very clear, there were lots of starfish, corals and small fishes.

Luckily I still get to snorkel in the nearby area, called Lobster Point. There were more beautiful corals and fishes, and it was the first time I have ever seen a turtle swimming in front of me under the water !!!

Tristan did follow us to Lobster Point but he didn't want to try moving around the water with daddy, he just soak in the cold water :-( So that evening, we brought him to the beach again to play with the sand, he buried his own legs and felt very happy :

On the third day, it wasn't sunny in the morning, it was raining the whole night and early morning, the current near Sipadan Island was said to be so strong that the divers were forced to cut their target 4 dives down to 3, and most of them were exhausted ! May be it's good that I had to skip the diving on this trip :-) My hubby said his boat ride to the Kapalai Island were very bumpy, his butt leaves the seat most of the time LoL




But the sea looked so calm here at Mabul :

Due to wrong information from a friend, I missed the boat ride to another nearby island for snorkeling, luckily we can still snorkel near the dive center here in Mabul. Although we only managed to see some fishes, I get to see another turtle right before we ended the snorkeling session, yeah ! The water was kind of cold which caused me to end the snorkeling session, but the sun did come out later though :-(

Me snorkeling :

Tristan prefers to draw than go snorkeling with us :

From the jetty, we can also see another resort called The Water Village which according to my hubby is better than Mabul Resort that we are staying this time in terms of food and room condition :

Tristan didn't want to go to the beach anymore today, so daddy suggested that they go for a ride on the battery-operated boat :

The sunset is beautiful :

Caught the moon and star :

And the last color of the day before we head for dinner :

The day of leaving, it was so sunny, Tristan hiding behind me :

Tioman Island

Tioman Island is located on the north east of Batu Pahat, the city where we live. It's not the most beautiful island in Malaysia, but its boat ride is very short, ie. around 2 hours, so we thought it's a good place for us to introduce an island to our 4-year old boy without too much stress as we do not know if he would have any seasick.





We started out early in the morning and stopped by at Kluang Rail Coffee to have breakfast. Than we continue our journey on the windy and hilly road to reach Mersing port after 3 hours.

We were very lucky as the boat was on time, sometimes it can be late by an hour !! We were also lucky as the beach we are heading to was the first stop with the majority of passengers, otherwise we could have spent more time on the boat ride by dropping other passengers to other beaches first.




It was a sunny day and the water looks very clear and beautiful.





Checking in to our room, in Salang Sayang Beach Resort. The room with double beds is better than the room with single bed as its bathroom is much bigger.



The beach is small but it's not crowded in early August.




I had fun going snorkeling although it was cloudy and the wave was bigger on the second day.



There was a monkey who kept plugging fresh coconut from the trees and looking for food at the beach.



I was glad that Tristan enjoyed himself very much at the beach although he was too timid to try and float in the water.



The evening was serene and relaxing, we had a fun trip ....



Until the bad experience in the boat ride back to Mersing port - the boat was late and the crowd waited anxiously for mre than half an hour, than it finally arrived and we thought wow, this is a new and big boat ! But than it started to pick up other passengers from other beaches, one by one, and at the last beach, it waited for passengers to arrived for another half an hour, than we realized that it was overloaded, many passengers had to stand in the aisle, and when it almost reaching the port, it started to rain and the boat was stuck due to low tide which in fact was due to overloading, than some passengers at the back were told to move to the middle of the boat to elevate the weight at the rear and the captain kept trying desperately to move the boat forward, which it finally gave up after 45 minutes !!! Than 2 smaller boats were called to unload some passengers and the boat than started to crawl like a tortoise back to the port, where the boat ride has become almost 5 hours ....... and there's still a minor thing, someone has stolen my husband's toiletry ...

It was really a bad ending and experience to this trip, but our friend who visited Tioman twice a year in the past few years had never experience this type of delay before, the common incidence is a transfer from smaller to bigger boat during low tide when departs from Mersing port or vice versa, but not in such a long delay.

Rolled over

Quentin rolled over more than a week ago, he was a little slower compared to Tristan, we waited and waited, he finally did it - on the bathroom floor :

Our new born

Quentin was born last week, weigh 3kg and length 51cm. Here's a snap of him, will update more when I get a chance.

Tristan's First Pet

We bought Tristan some colorful small fish in August 11th, he liked to feed them endlessly, and he liked to scare them by hitting the shoe cabinet where the fish bowl was placed on top :(

I was thinking of taking the photos of the small fish bowl but I was too late ... The fish died one by one each day and they were all gone after more than a week, I felt so sorry for them, we didn't know the cause of their death, we followed the instructions given by the fish shop helper, we did change water regularly and restrict Tristan from feeding them too much.

I think we won't be buying any new pets for him for a while until we know for sure that we can help him to take great care of them.

New problems

While I was happily enjoying my second trimester (at 23rd week now), good time doesn't last long for me, I had Hemorrhoid that's getting bigger and very painful, I can't sit properly and when it gets to the most serious condition, I felt extreme pain even with a slight movement.

It was actually my own fault to have dragged it for a few days, I was hoping it will go away but it actually got bigger and bigger. Finally I went to the local gynae who has prescribed daflon for this problem, I didn't want to take painkiller as I thought I should limit the medicine intake, so I had to suffer for another 2 days or so before the hemorrhoid become smaller and less painful.

Then Tristan started having fever, coughing and running nose on Tuesday night, I was so worry that it would be the H1N1 virus, so we brought him to the general hospital the next morning, hoping that they would perform some kind of test to verify it, but the temperature turns out to be below 38 degree C (through ear measurement) and the doctor said his symptoms do not look to be the same as the H1N1's, so no test was performed, instead we were given some medicine to take for 3 days and continue to monitor the symptoms.

The medicine seems to be so awful that Tristan ran for his life whenever he sees them, the fever persisted and we had to bring him to the child specialist the next morning, we did the right thing as the child specialist again confirm that it's very likely not H1N1, and Tristan is willing to take the medicine from the child specialist.

His fever is finally under control, but the coughing remained, we'll have to be cautious and continue to give medicine besides monitoring it.

Now the hemorrhoid is getting very small and almost painless, I hope nothing new pops up in the near future so that I can enjoy a peaceful pregnancy for a while.

Getting Bigger

Since week 20th, I have more energy and feeling so much better, I can finally go for 30 minutes breeze walking in the evening twice a week, I can take bath for Tristan without the feeling of throwing up. I can eat all kinds of food without feeling ill and I have put on 2kg in the last month itself ! I really enjoy myself in whatever I'm doing now.

But the last visit to the Gynae reviewed that there's water on the fetus' brain. I checked the book and it is called Hydrocephalus, although the Gynae said that it is normal and it is usually gone after 2-3 months, I am worry as the book says it often occurs with neurological defects such as spina bifida.

I thought I had been lucky to skip the amneocentesis and the 3 weeks waiting for its result, now it's even longer to have to wait for 2-3 months for this "water on the brain". However there's nothing I can do except to wait and hope for the best.