content
Media
July 25, 2008
Offshore Yachting
June/July 2008
July 25, 2008
Pacific Rim Leisure
September/October Volume 2
Page 10-11
July 23, 2008
SeaBreeze Magazine
July 01, 2008
New Straits Times
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/TravelTimes/article/TravelNews/20080630142538/Article/
February 01, 2008
Going Places
News
October 03, 2007
Bali, June 2007
Raja Laut cruises into the beautiful island of Bali. Arriving at Bali Marina, at Benoa Harbour in the mid-afternoon after sailing into the straights that separate Bali from Lombok, where there is the magnificent view of the Volcanic geography of this region. Bali will be Raja Laut's base for her cruises for the rest of the summer. From this exceptional, internationally accessible island yachts can cruise the islands of Nusa Tenggara (Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores) and even further east. The Banda Sea, the Spice islands, the Raja Ampat & West Papua are Asia's newest yachting playgrounds. Although those areas have been well documented and travelled, it is still very untouched, there is no mass tourism, and the best way to explore is by private yacht charter.
October 03, 2007
Sangalaki, May 2007
After clearing the yacht into Indonesia in the port of Jakarta, a detour was made en-route to Bali with a visit to Sangalaki island, East Kalimantan. Sangalaki and the surrounding islands are a new destination for travelers in Southeast Asia, difficult to access by land but a perfect, idyllic cruising ground for yachts. The area has been very popular with scuba divers as it has huge variety of dive sites including pristine reefs, wall diving, drift dives, caves and lagoons. Manta Rays sometimes gather in their hundreds on Sangalaki, which is also a year round nesting site for turtles. Nearly all the islands in this group, also known as the Derawan islands are uninhabited, and their environments remain pristine. A short distance to the mainland we find the Berau river. Sailing up her is a journey into the rainforests of Borneo: There are proboscis monkeys in the delta, and further up river the indigenous Dayak people of Borneo still live as they have for hundreds of years. In exchange for gifts of salted fish and matches the Dayak here welcome you into their homes and, invariably, a great feast begins, mainly involving lots of rice wine and dancing. Sangalaki was a great detour for the yacht Raja Laut and we look forward to cruising the area again!
October 03, 2007
Singapore, April 2007
A stop over in Singapore was a good way to break up the long sailing passage from Langkawi to Indonesia. The yacht Raja Laut took the opportunity to take part in the Singapore Boat Show. One of the best established boat and yacht shows, helping to promote yachting in Southeast Asia, the Singapore boat show was a great success this year attracting more than 10 000 visitors, and taking place in the new, high-class marina located on Sentosa: "One Degree 15".
December 11, 2006
Raja Laut in Langkawi
To all who are following the journey of the classic yacht Raja Laut,
Ahoy from Langkawi!
Raja Laut is now at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club, which is Malaysia's largest marina located near Langkawi's main settlement of Kuah. This is a great place to be for any yacht that wishes to have access to the wonders of the Andaman Sea. Many sailing itineraries are possible including the stunning islands of Thailand's Phang-Nga Bay just a few hours away by sail. The marina has 205 berths, and the club itself is like a small village offering supplies, recreation and sporting facilities, a swimming pool, jacuzzi, restaurant.
Our passage from Borneo was the very definition of "smooth sailing" - the wind was rarely above 10 knots and the sea state calm, almost glassy. Raja Laut was motoring ninety percent of the time, and she averaged 9knots. The passage was an amazingly quick 7 day affair, which included a day stop over at Port Dickson - at the Admiral Marina just minutes away from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
In Port Dickson on Monday we welcomed 3 guests aboard the yacht who have flown over from Paris to join the sail up to Langkawi. Departing the morning after at dusk, Raja Laut was breezing smoothly past the beautiful Pulau Pangkor by night, and continuing through to the early hours of Wednesday morning past the vibrant port of Penang until she reached the southern islands of the Langkawi group on Thursday.
We anchored by Pulau Dayang Bunting and visited the lake of the "Pregnant Maiden".
Above all other holiday resorts in Malaysia, Langkawi and her 99 islands boasts of the existence of various legends and myths. The legend of Pulau Dayang Bunting tells of how the lake’s reputed power to cure infertility came about when it was blessed by a fairy princess. The fairy princess fell in love and married a mortal prince. The couple conceived a child soon after, but lost the child not long after birth. It was believed that the couple chose the lake area to bury their child and the fairy princess blessed the lake so that any woman who has difficulty to conceive will be rewarded and blessed with a child if she drank the water from the lake.
We certainly look forward to hearing more legends and visiting more of these beautiful islands cruising with you in the future.
October 12, 2006
Discovering Mantanani islands
We departed from Sutera Harbour Marina early in the morning to the Mantanani Islands located 40 Nautical Miles northwest from Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). As we left the harbour, with the morning sun softly shining across the calm water, my mind began to fill with a sense of adventure. The beautiful wood surrounding you aboard the classic yacht Raja Laut blends with the tropical scenery, and with the water flowing across the bow and a gentle breeze cooling you, even as the day starts to warm up, a sense of peace sets in!
As Kota Kinabalu vanished in the morning jungle haze, quietly the crew began to raise the sails - all four of them. As the enormous white canvases were raised the wind too seemed to pick up, the yacht surges forward. Our guests who were aching from having climbed mount Kinabalu just 3 days previously said it was like "taking the final step into a Jacuzzi - our muscles completely relaxed".
The sail to the Mantanani islands took us about 6 hours. Upon arrival, the midday sun baking over our heads, we served a beautiful lunch, which included a special treat - a local Kadazan dish named Hinava made from a king mackerel (caught by one of the crew along the way) with fresh mangoes & lime. We could see the reef beneath us through the clear waters and we were soon gearing up our guests for an awesome afternoon dive! There was not a lot more we could have done to make this day complete other than to prepare drinks at sunset and a few more after dinner!
At the Mantanani islands you get a real sense of tropical paradise, and it feels like it's all yours because of the isolation - indeed for the time the yacht there it was hers to enjoy exclusively. After another excellent day of diving and exploring one of the uninhabited islands we enjoyed another excellent evening in much the same fashion as the first.