SailBlog

Cetacea in Australia

12 September 2023
Tony Wessendorff
In March 2023, we flew back to Cetacea in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. We had a bottom job (new paint on the bottom) done in the shipyard. We left PNG in May sailing to Indonesia. Half way there, we had a generator heat exchanger go out, so we ended up sailing to Darwin, Australia, which was the closest place we could get repairs made. We found that we got water in our fuel (in PNG) and it caused other problems as well. We got the engine and generator problems fixed and took off for Indonesia again, only to have more problems. So we boomeranged back to Darwin. We have been in Darwin for almost 4 months now, fixing one thing, only to have another thing break, fixing that thing, only to have something else break. And, each time, it takes weeks to get the parts shipped in. But, we have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Darwin!

Finally, we think we are ready to leave again, scheduled for Friday September 13th, crossing our fingers! We do not keep up with this blog site any longer. We do sporadic email blogs now. If you would like to get on the email blog list, just send me an email (GailCorriganW@gmail.com). But, I will update our position and add at least an annual note on where we are on this blog site.

More Later, much later
G&T
Vessel Name: Cetacea
Vessel Make/Model: Cheoy Lee 53' Motorsailor
Hailing Port: Houston, Texas, USA
Crew: Tony Wessendorff & Gail Corrigan
About:
After 25 fun filled years as an environmental consulting firm owner, Gail sold her company and she and her husband, Tony the CFO, retired to go sailing on their boat Cetacea (see photo gallery). Cetacea was in St. [...]
Extra: P.S. Cetacea is the higher order biological name for whales and dolphins. Whales and dolphins are cetaceans. And our boat is a big fat whale of a boat, hence the name Cetacea! Not to mention that Tony & Gail, like all sailors, love whales.
Cetacea's Photos - Samoan Cultural Show & Fire Dancing Show (July 2016)
Photos 1 to 27 of 27 | Main
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Visitor Center
Inside main visitor center fale
Palm tree leaf weaving lesson
Tony weaved his own head band.
Wood carving fale.
Carving a ceremonial kava bowl.
Female tattoos are only on upper thighs.
Stripping the bark to make tapa.
Stretching the bark with a stone.
Wetting the bark to stretch it more.
Pounding the bark to make tapa cloth.
Stretching and drying the tapa.
Dried tapa with some holes to fix.
Adding tapa layers to fix the holes.
Painting the tapa design.
Large tapa designs.
A Samoan Feast includes cooking pig, fish, bananas, and root veggies on hot rocks.
The food is then covered with banana leaves to cook.
Every feast starts with a kava ceremony where everyone drinks from the same bowl.
The band - guitars and a drum.
Samoan dancing.
The women use lots of hand movements to tell a story.
The men dance with lots of jumping and slapping their knees.
The show started with a kava ceremony.
The kava ceremonial dance.
The fire dancing show started with the young boys.
The fire dancing.
 
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