May 07 2021
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Super Tired!

By Cherie Beling

Super Tired! I am 29 weeks 5 days pregnant! Yes, I know its Friday and everybody gets tired of the long week and can’t wait for the weekend to start! But honestly since been pregnant I have struggled to get back on the horse when blogging – more accurately since the car crash happened and it started sinking in all the privileges that were stolen from us! So, most days I spend tryna find myself and figure out what is needed to be done during the day! Dishes, washing, washing the dogs, helping build the house where I can – although I am pretty much useless in that department its fun watching Tom (baby daddy) get excited and bounce ideas off of me. Since it has always been his dream to build his own house! “And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 2 Corinthians 4:8  So, why do I feel so tired all the time? I worked harder in Pretoria and felt less tired. Well I guess carrying around extra weight all day long doesn’t help, constantly focusing on not toppling over all the time like a drunk takes a lot of focused energy since my mind still hasn’t adjusted its center of gravity and literally getting annoyed with any sound my mind deems unnatural, such as if the dogs chew or itch or just generally breath to loudly can drive me insane these days! The dogs breathing, chewing and scratching at night keeps me awake besides getting up at 11, 2 and 7 in the morning (if I am lucky those are the only times I wake up. It sometimes is more). Surprisingly, it’s not the baby’s movements which keep me up at night, more like I need to pee 10 times in a row and am an unlucky sleeper that takes sometimes hours to get back to sleep – literally between 2 and 4 hours mostly! My week was ok. Tom can’t believe that it’s Friday, he woke up this morning thinking it was Wednesday! Me on the other hand am just so grateful it is Friday! I told him this morning he gave all the extra time to me. I guess the slow week is due to the anticipation of next week’s Antenatal care (ANC) Checkup. I can’t wait. Although, I really wish these appointments would come with scans. But I guess as long as the health care workers don’t think there’s anything wrong we should be good. This coming week we will be 10 weeks and counting till babykins arrives! Read Previous blog – Excitement, Worry and Fear?  

May 06 2021
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Excitement, Worry and Fear?

By Cherie Beling

Excitement, Worry and Fear? Psalm 18:2 “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.” I am currently 29 weeks and 4 days pregnant… Wow, what a journey it has been so far. I always wanted to have kids and entertained the thoughts of what pregnant life would be like. All the glamour of baby showers, setting up a baby room getting regular ultrasounds, the exciting part of finding out if baby is a boy or girl etc. Never in my wildest dreams did I think 7 months and 1 week would be so terrifying and a nightmare come true! Don’t get me wrong pregnancy has its perks such as me carrying small, people are still so shocked to know I am pregnant when they see me in person and even more shocked when I tell them how far along I am! My pregnancy has been pretty standard I think? A few aches and pains here and there, growing baby, baby started kicking at just the right time. As far as we know my body and the baby seem to tell me everything is still ok? But that is not what makes this pregnancy a nightmare. I love been pregnant feeling babies kicks and movements day after day. But unfortunately stress takes a lot away from what should be the most exciting time of my life. Deuteronomy 31:8 “He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Last year 19 August 2020 a drunk driver quite literally came crashing into our lives destroying all our hopes, dreams and looking back on it now our little perfect world! I won’t go into detail about our car crash besides to say that injuring your hip right before you get pregnant is not such a good idea if you can’t fix the problem! Unfortunately during the car crash something hit my car seat so hard it twisted my seat, luckily I was wearing my seatbelt, but unfortunately whatever twisted my seat also forced my seatbelt to nearly crush my right hip. Which sometimes even now causes severe pain if baby goes to lie on just the right spot and also causes discomfort at night since pregnant women should not lie or sleep on their backs especially in 3rd Trimester! Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Fast forward nearly 9 months. About 2 months after the car crash, a miracle happened! I had a menstrual period non-stop for 6-7 months already. Living so far from everything we never bothered going to a doctor and just blamed it on my irregular period I had always had (Yes I know irresponsible. Blame it on Covid!) I conceived a baby on the 27th of September 2020. How do we know it’s so accurate is that this was the very first time I had stopped bleeding since I started my endless cycle! Fast forward 7 months later! Babies due date is drawing closer. Anticipation of arrival is creeping up more and more day by day. Little ones due date is 18 July 2021 although our health care workers tell us we should be ready anytime from the 1st of July – 2 months left! I am so excited to meet our little blessing, although sadly we will only know the sex of baby when he/she is born because in rural areas like Sodwana Bay the hospitals only believe in doing dating and emergency ultrasounds! So this will be a super exciting surprise when the day comes to know if a boy or girl has been eagerly waiting to meet us! Isaiah 43:1 “Don’t fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine.” My biggest worry would be we don’t have a car and live very far from the nearest hospital with no support system and no transport! So yeah, I think we could consider how do most Zulus get to hospitals and have babies etc… But imagine growing up in a city with a car and always been able to be self reliant, just for all that to be taken away in a blink of an eye and then to get the most amazing surprise of your life that a little blessing with huge responsibilities attached is on its way! The final key word here would be Fear! My biggest fear is not getting to the hospital on time. So far God has really protected me from a complicated pregnancy and all seems to be going well so far! Unfortunately, my mom did have a complicated birth with me and I fear the same will happen to me, the worst fear I have is never been able to hold our little one or not been around to watch him/her grow up because of complications. But when I get these deep dark thoughts I just turn and thank God that He gave us this little blessing and that He will make sure all of us make it through these very trying times!

Mar 04 2021
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African Red Knob Sea star found in Sodwana Bay

By Cherie Beling

We found a Patrick- Sponge Bob’s best friend! Wow our very first star fish/ Sea star ever found! We found this gorgeous African Red Knob Sea star in Sodwana Bay’s Rock pools while snorkeling! We were on our way to go snorkel in a nearby tidal pool when Tom suddenly saw a bright red star with a grey body clinging to one of the rocks in a shallow pool. At first I thought it might be a toy until it started moving slowly, Tom wanted to touch it, but I cautioned him not to touch it just in case it might be poisonous (Not venomous!)? He then decided to try pick it up with the GoPro and took it out the water to take better pics. It was really huge. Never expected a star fish could get that big – we estimate this starfish was about 20 – 25cm diameter. They can grow up to 30cm in diameter. These Starfish are apparently a prize to keep in an aquarium and are actually nocturnal… Hmmm wonder what this one was doing up so late in broad daylight? Like all sea creatures I would prefer admiring these gorgeous creatures in the sea and having the joy and excitement of been able to find such a creature in the sea rather than captivity seeing them miserable in someone’s house! I always get super excited finding new sea creatures I never imagined could exist and can’t help myself finding out all the amazing fun facts about our new found species… So here are a few fun facts about these beautiful creatures!   Fun facts: These starfish like the warm ocean as they are only found in the indo-pacific ocean! The African Red Knob Sea star is also commonly known as the red knob sea star, red spine star or the African sea star (Scientific name – Protoreaster linckii). Now anybody who has held a starfish dead or alive or just seen a starfish would consider this creature to be more like part of some sortof coral, but in actual fact is classified as an animal not plant! These starfish can grow up to 30 cm in diameter. That as long as a standard ruler which in my opinion is rather large for something I always imagined being small! Its body is grey and the red lines and knobs are actually tubercles making its appearance look like it has a really messy circuit board on its back! These stars can be found in shallow tidal pools and love to hang out with coral up to 100m deep – one of their main food sources lives on coral! These poor starfish are great pets for aquariums, but are very incompatible with most reef tanks as they eat soft corals, sponges, tube worms, clams, other starfish, and the like! So why not just leave it in the sea where it can be controlled by nature! Like most starfish they have 5 arms, their bellies are red and they have pink podia’s(feet) with a central mouth like all starfish do! I never knew a creature could do this – The red knobbed starfish has no teeth to consume its prey, instead it will push out its stomach from the inside out and consume its prey afterwards it will retract its stomach back into its mouth and carry on digesting its food! I mean is this thing something from an alien horror movie or something. That sounds really gross and out of this world!!! “Once the starfish has a clam in its arms, it pries the mollusks shell open and release its stomach into the shell. The stomach has very strong digestive juices that kills and liquefies the animal inside the shell. Once the mollusk is dead, the stomach sucks up the animal, brings in its stomach, and leaves the empty shell on the ocean floor.” – Quote from: Branson’s Wild World Starfish do not have brains and use filtered sea water as blood. These creatures become more insane the more you read about them References: Wikipedia, Branson’s Wild World, Pets on Mom

Jan 21 2021
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Let a Local Advertise your Business

By Cherie Beling

  Lets get Sodwana Businesses supporting other local businesses. Check out our advertising PLANS  Lets be honest – SafariNow, trivago, tripadvisor and all these corporate travel agencies are great and convenient for customers and how you arrange bookings! But honestly unless you have returning clients and people who actually know about Sodwana Bay or have heard of Sodwana and would like to give it a try, you get lost in the system and have to compete with way more popular holiday destinations such as: Cape Town or Durban or even Mozambique and Richards Bay. Honestly this is truly not fair! Our team here at Sodwana Bay Information wants to help change all that. How do we propose to do this, you may ask? Well by putting Sodwana Bay on the map, by not just tryna recruit old clients in to coming back and a hand full of new tourists that happen to stumble upon this gorgeous rural gem, but we want to recruit new clients who have never been here from all over South Africa and Internationally! Not just the Germans and Hollanders, but what about Americans and the British, Asians  etc. Bring them to sunny South Africa. Yeah everybody is scared of crime. But its up to us as a community to chase the rif raf away! How we propose to put Sodwana Bay and your local Business on the map is by taking Sodwana to Social Media… Yeah our community has its Sodwana Bay Facebook groups and that is great!  But sadly this is not enough! I have been on countless SA groups and international groups, and I am sad to say – there are no mention of Sodwana Bay anywhere. Although I am totally in love with Sodwana Bay I only learnt this place existed after I turned 19 years old. How sad is that and how many countless people die not even knowing this hidden gem exists! Lets make Sodwana as popular as Cape Town, so famous that international tourists will rather wanna experience true Africa instead of just another Big City/Town! We can help with that. Check out our price list below and help make Sodwana and your business Famous again!