Luna Ray

After my return from Canada, and some great snowboarding at Whistler/Blackcomb, I returned to Luna Ray at Rebak Resort Marina, Langkawi. This blog has been written with info to help others that might visit the area so has some factual boring details which I’ll put in italics. Please avoid the obvious comment that it should all be in italics ! After a few days re-adjusting to the temperature, doing some boat jobs and frequent visits to the pool, I left on my own. I have moved the boat a couple of times on my own short distances but this was my first proper time as a solo sailor on Luna Ray. I anchored outside the 2 manmade islands at Telaga Harbour (the anchorage inside was far too tight to do it on my own). The next ... read more

I’ve been a bit slack at completing this last blog, and almost didn’t bother but I wanted to wrap it up properly. At Pangkor, back in Malaysia, we had a ton of jobs to take care to get the boat ready to put her to bed. Come monday we hired a moped and with Alex sandwiched between us we drove to the nearby town to visit a couple of offices to check Luna Ray in with customs and the harbour master, and then Tesco’s. Wednesday, at 5:30pm we reversed out of our pen, spun the boat about and straight onto the Sea-lift. I was directed to power the boat left and right a few times before we were perfectly straight on its longitudinal tubes. Then we lifted out the water for a very long wash-down. I ... read more

As I write this we are back in the same spot, off Sunset Beach, Koh Lipe, where I left off last time. This afternoon we walked across the island, down Walking Street and along the beach to check out of Thailand at the immigration office. The official in charge today was very welcoming, inviting us into his air-conditioned cabin, offering us chilled bottled water as we filled out the paper work. Back down the beach we had lunch at Cafe Lipe again. They tend to cater to the healthier side of eating, not even serving Coke or burgers, so I am no sure why we keep going back but the masaman curry with roti bread, and banana shakes are very tasty. This was our last meal in Thailand for a while. We got some groceries and ... read more

Its been a while since the last blog and I left off at the bottom of Koh Lanta, half way to Langkawi. I guess I am not so keen to post the blogs now that we are familiar ground, less novelty to inspire me to write. We had some more very pleasant long slow days sailing south to Malaysia - I think our record low was 2.4 knots average one day. Despite this being the NE monsoon, making us anchor on the west side of land, there were westerly afternoon sea breezes. They were light winds so the waves made were small but the land we anchored next to were sheer rock faces the waves would reverberate off them make for sloppy water… so we sailed slowly each day as long as possible as it was ... read more

We had a couple of days stuck on Luna Ray as we worked on the dinghy which we had lifted onto the front deck. We cleaned away some of the glue like residue from when I cleaned it in Bali with acetone (oops!), prepared the handle areas and handles (with some sanding away of old glue) and I tried to glue down the area where the air leaked around the valve (you’re supposed to take it apart for this apparently but I do not have the tool). Two days later the handles seem pretty well fixed on but the air leak was still there - it seemed to stop with pressure so we applied some with long pieces of gaffa tape. Despite the air still leaking we decided to continue our planned tour rather than rush ... read more