“I mentioned to my husband that I had a dream of running a small resort on a tropical island – he entertained the idea, but didn’t take me seriously,” says Louw.

“A [website] for best snorkelling spots in the world suggested Kapas Island off the Malaysian east coast,” Louw says.

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For Louw, it was love at first sight. The eight-room resort would not require many staff, it was close to the mainland – 15 minutes by boat – and, with monsoon season stretching from October until March, work would be seasonal and free up time for the family to travel.

A few months later, the resort came on the market at an asking price beyond the family’s reach, and Louw started emailing the Dutch owner, whom she had met.

“In September 2018, [owner] Peter asked me to come to Malaysia. He said if Sylvia [his wife, who was battling cancer and died in 2019] liked me and felt that I was a suitable buyer, we could draw up a contract.”

She did, and so they did; the Louw family packed up their belongings and arrived on Kapas Island in February 2019 as the new owners of Kapas Turtle Valley.

The exciting new beginning for the family, however, came with its obstacles.

“The kids were missing their friends and family and were still getting used to online schooling,” says Louw. “This was probably the hardest part for me – coping with running the resort while supporting my kids.”

Still, Louw’s knowledge of hospitality was the perfect foundation to build upon for their island resort to become successful, and her husband – who had worked in IT – had a good understanding of customer service.

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“The guests loved my food,” says Louw. “It was not the same fine dining I cooked in South Africa, but it was full of flavour and cooked from the heart.” That first season, guests said they felt as if they were part of the family at Kapas Turtle Valley.

“This was the greatest compliment and it was exactly what I had envisioned, so at the end of 2019, we thought we made it. We not only coped, we did well,” says Louw.

“My daughter has a sweet tooth and dreams of becoming a pastry chef, so she put all her extra time into baking and got so good that she now makes all the desserts on the menu for our guests,” says Louw.

While people in cities around mainland Malaysia were confined to their homes, the family had much more freedom on Kapas and they could go out and enjoy the ocean every day.

“We would make species lists of all the fish and we were able to witness how, with the absence of boats and tourists, birds started nesting closer to our bungalows,” Louw says. “Bigger schools of fish started gathering in front of the resort, and seven new baby blacktip sharks swam by the resort every morning.”

The family also did an open water diving course and joined a volunteer programme helping protect green turtles. They started a hatchery on Kapas and relocated and saved over 6,000 eggs from poachers and natural predators in 2021.

With the ocean on her doorstep, Louw was able to indulge her love of swimming. In 2021, she signed up for a 6.5km (4-mile) swim from Kapas to Merang on the mainland.

This event helped Louw become comfortable with open water swimming, and she swam 8km as part of a duo at the 16km Perhentian Island Challenge in October 2022.

For Louw, swimming “serves as a kind of meditation or an escape from noise and always being service minded, chatting to guests and servicing guests”.

Liam has inherited his mum’s passion for the sea, and he loves to scuba dive and paddle board. Despite the ups and downs of his unconventional island life, he considers himself lucky.

“There’s a sense of freedom that I otherwise wouldn’t have known,” he says. “I get to meet new people from all over and learn about different cultures without even going anywhere.”

With few inhabitants on Kapas, most of Liam and Mila’s local friends are the children of guests. When they are not working at the resort after school, they take part in after-school activities off the beach – or even off the island and sometimes on their own. Mila is taking piano lessons once a week on the mainland in Kuala Terengganu.

“It is not your typical teenage life and it can get lonely at times, but we visit our friends on the mainland often and meet new friends at the resort,” says Mila.

Smith, who stood by his wife’s desire to move, has treasured the opportunity to slow down and connect with nature. The biggest adjustment for him has been having to always have a smile on his face for guests and to have the same sunrise and sunset times every day.

Still, he has never regretted a single moment.

“My wife’s dream became my dream,” he says. “The biggest advantage is the chance to be with our kids more and to have something that’s ours.”